Composers Datebook

Today’s date marks the birthday in 1937 of American composer Robert Moran. A native of Denver, he studied in Berkley with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio and in Vienna with Hans Apostel, a pupil of Schoenberg and Berg.

It was in Vienna that Moran overheard an unfamiliar waltz and was surprised to learn that Austrian composers were still writing them. Intrigued, he wrote one himself and asked 24 other contemporary composers to write more for The Waltz Project, a collection recorded as a Nonesuch LP in 1980 and later choreographed by the New York City Ballet.

Moran’s catalog of works includes the choral setting Winni Ille Pu (a classical Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh) and Lunchbag Opera, scored for performers hidden in adult-size brown lunch bags, each armed with toy noise-makers to be played while strolling through — according to Moran’s instructions — “any important financial district or banking center at lunch time.”

One of Moran’s large-scale works, The Game of the Antichrist from 2012, is based on a medieval mystery play from Bavaria. It’s scored for children’s chorus, adult vocalists, organ and a small ensemble that includes an alpine horn and cocktail bar piano.

Robert Moran (b. 1937) Waltz in Memoriam Maurice Ravel; Yvar Mikhashoff, p. Nonesuch LP D-79011 (out of print)

Robert Moran (b. 1937) Finale: Banishment of the Antichrist, from Game of the Antichrist Children’s Chorus of Gemeinde Vaterstetten; Vocal Ensemble Chrismos; Alexander Hermann, cond. Innova CD 251

A remarkable shift of focus in music history occurred in the latter part of the 20th century when performers and musicologists began turning their attention to neglected works by women composers of the past and present. Composers such as Hildegard von Bingen, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Rebecca Clarke and Florence Price began to receive the attention they deserved.

Much work remains to be done on this front, however.

Take the case of Monserrate Ferrer Otero, also known as Monsita Ferrer, born in San Juan on this date in 1885. She began playing the piano at an early age and later pursued composition studies in New York. She was one of Puerto Rico’s first professional woman composers and in 1956 served as an adviser in the planning of its Conservatory of Music. Although enjoying success during her lifetime, only a few of her works are still performed today. This slow waltz, Bajo el Oro del Crepúsculo (or Under the Gold of Twilight) was dedicated to fellow travelers aboard the luxury liner Victoria Luisa.

A string quartet and most of her other vocal and piano works remain unpublished long after Ferrer‘s death in 1966.

Monserrate Ferrer Otero (1885-1966) Bajo el Oro del Crepúsculo (Vals lento); Kimberly Davis, p. from album ‘La Ondina: Una Colección de Música Puertorriqueña para Piano’

On today’s date in 1755, Montezuma, an opera by German Baroque composer Carl Heinrich Graun, had its premiere performance at the Berlin Court Opera of Frederick II, King of Prussia. Frederick supervised the rehearsals, which isn’t all that surprising, since he had drafted the opera’s libretto.

Despite his well-deserved reputation as a military leader, Frederick the Great also was a talented musician and composer. As a young prince, he had tried to run away from home to pursue a musical career. His royal father was not amused. Heads rolled — one of them belonging to Frederick’s favorite music teacher — and thereafter Frederick focused on his military studies until he could ascend the throne. As king, Frederick built an opera house in Berlin and called some of Europe’s finest composers to his court — but also transformed Prussia into the military superpower of Europe.

Some speculate that Frederick’s choice of Montezuma as an opera subject might be psychologically revealing. Perhaps Frederick saw the artistic, peace-loving, passive side of his nature in the tragic Mexican king and his aggressive, military side in Spanish invader Cortez.

As Freud might have said a century or so later: “Very interesting.”

Carl Heinrich Graun (1703-1759) Montezuma Overture; German Chamber Academy; Johannes Gortizki, cond. Capriccio 60032

On today’s date in 1973, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center premiered a new work by Pierre Boulez for solo flute and seven instruments, plus interaction with an electronic computer program, which generated sounds that reacted to (and interacted with) the solo flute. The piece was titled explosante-fixe, which translates as “exploding-fixed.”

At the time, however, Boulez was frustrated by the still primitive computer technology.

“You still had connections with wires and so on,” he recalled. “It was clumsy and unreliable.”

Twenty years later, Boulez presented a new version of explosante-fixe, employing updated computer technology and midi-flute, controlled by a computer. This version was recorded, in effect “fixing the explosion.”

Boulez once quoted with approval French dramatist Antonin Artaud, who described music as “collective hysteria and spells.” Yet Boulez carefully plotted out his compositions in obsessively meticulous detail.

And, speaking of explosions, Boulez once suggested that as a radical break with the past, all opera houses should be blown up. Yet, as a conductor, Boulez was a devoted interpreter of some past composers, such as Debussy and Stravinsky — and, if you listen closely, echoes of their music can be heard in his own.

Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) explosante-fixe; Sophie Cherrier, solo midi flute; Ensemble Intercontemporain; Pierre Boulez, cond. DG 445 833

In essence, the music of the 18th century was an international, cosmopolitan language. But just as “nationalism” in language, culture and politics came to the fore in the 19th century, so did the radical new idea that each nation should develop its own, distinct, “national” style of music.

On today’s date in 1840, a dramatic manifestation of this new trend occurred in the city of Pest. Hungarian-born piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt returned in triumph to his native land for a gala concert at the Hungarian National Theatre. After the performance, several Hungarian aristocrats, decked out in lavish native costumes, presented Liszt with a bejeweled Sword of Honor and delivered speeches in Hungarian praising him as an artist and patriot. For his part, Liszt delivered an equally impassioned speech calling for Hungarian cultural and political independence. The patriotic audience went berserk with joy and began a torchlight procession of about 5,000 people through the city, with Liszt at the front.

It’s one of those nice, ironic touches of history, however, that Liszt, the standard bearer for Hungarian national music, didn’t really speak Hungarian well — and, for the record, delivered his patriotic address in French.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2; Valentina Lisitsa, piano Audiofon 72055

On today’s date in 1941, the final orchestral work of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff received its premiere performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, led by Eugene Ormandy.

It was an orchestral suite, Symphonic Dances, and was originally planned as a triptych depicting the passage of time, with its three sections to be titled “Midday,” “Twilight” and “Midnight.” For this new work, Rachmaninoff recycled music from an older one: an unfinished ballet from 1915.

Rachmaninoff was an unabashed and unrepentant Romantic at heart, with his musical style grounded in the late 19th-century tradition. Oddly enough, in all other matters Rachmaninoff was modern — even trendy. When living in Russia, he owned the first automobile in his rural part of the country. After settling in Switzerland, the home he built on Lake Lucerne was designed in the ultra-modern Bauhaus style, and Rachmaninoff liked to zoom around the lake in a snappy little speedboat.

And, when in New York City, rather than sipping borscht at the Russian Tea Room, he would more likely be seen at a corner drug store, indulging in a quintessential American treat: ice-cream sodas.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Symphonic Dances; Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, cond. Reference 96

Today’s date marks the birthday of American composer and educator Gardner Read, who was born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1913.

Read studied music at Northwestern University, then at the Eastman School, where his teachers included Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers. He also studied with Aaron Copland and Italian modernist composer Ildebrando Pizzetti. Read became a noted teacher himself and held posts in St. Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Boston. His Symphony No. 1 was premiered by John Barbirolli and won first prize at the New York Philharmonic Society's American Composers' Contest. He wrote four symphonies in all, as well as other orchestral, choral and chamber works and a significant body of works for or with pipe organ.

In 1978, musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky wrote: “In American music, the name of Gardner Read is synonymous with the best traditions of modern classicism and inspired romanticism. ... To the musical analyst, it presents a technical interest as well, for in his use of the multicolored palette of modern instrumentation, Gardner Read offers fascinating examples of organized sonorities. The substance of his compositions is infinitely varied; he is a true Renaissance man, working in many different genres without prejudice and achieving his objectives with impeccable taste.”

Gardner Read (1913-2005): Allegro scherzando, from Symphony No. 4 (Cleveland Orchestra; Lorin Maazel, cond.) New World 742

Today we celebrate hopeful beginnings — and happy endings.

In Leipzig, on New Year’s Day 1724, Johann Sebastian Bach led the first performance of “Singet dem Herrn ein Neues Lied“ (or “Sing to the Lord a New Song,” in English) — a work we now know as his Cantata 190.

About 200 of Bach’s church cantatas have survived. In 2000, British conductor John Eliot Gardiner decided to perform and record of all of them in the space of one liturgical year in historical churches in Europe and America. Starting on Christmas Day 1999, in Weimar, Germany, Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists set out to do just that.

It was an ambitious undertaking, and Gardiner said, “Just as in planning to scale a mountain or cross an ocean, you can make meticulous provision, calculate your route and get all the equipment in order, in the end you have to deal with whatever the elements — both human and physical – throw at you at any given moment.”

Gardiner’s Bach Cantata pilgrimage came to its triumphant conclusion on New Year’s Eve in 2000 at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, with a performance of Cantata 190.

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 190; Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. SDG 137

These days, “musical piracy” can mean anything from illegal downloads to bootleg compact discs pressed in China.

But back in 1878, the smash success of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta HMS Pinafore resulted in a flurry of unauthorized “pirate” productions in the United States. The two resourceful Englishmen decided the best way to put a stop to it was to premiere their next collaboration in New York, thereby establishing its copyright under American law.

And so, on today’s date in 1879, it was Arthur Sullivan who conducted the pit orchestra of the Fifth Avenue Theater in Manhattan for the first full performance of their latest creation, titled, perhaps not coincidentally, The Pirates of Penzance.

The New York Times review was glowing in its praise but did point out that the new work was strikingly similar to Pinafore.

“There is genuine musical merit in several of the numbers,” it said. “… A chorus of policemen was the most musically humorous number of the evening and provoked more amusement than anything else. ... In response to repeated calls, the author and composer appeared before the curtain and bowed their acknowledgments.”

Gilbert and Sullivan - The Pirates of Penzance; D'Oyly Carte Opera; Royal Philharmonic; Isidore Godfrey, cond. London 425 196

Now 18th-century opera is supposed to be a rather staid and stuffy affair. These operas invariably had happy endings, with all the messy human passion and conflicts amicably resolved by the opera’s finale.

But 18th-century opera could arouse some serious emotion offstage. In 1704, an 18-year-old composer named George Frideric Handel was employed as a violinist and harpsichordist in the orchestra of the Hamburg opera house. He made the acquaintance of another young composer, 23-year-old Johann Mattheson. The two became fast friends until, that is, a December performance of Mattheson’s opera Cleopatra, during which Handel refused to turn over the harpsichord to Mattheson.

“Hey, it’s my opera, after all — move over!” Mattheson must have said, but to no avail.

One thing led to another, and the result was a duel. It is said that Handel’s life was saved by a button on his coat that deflected one of Mattheson’s more lethal sword-thrusts.

Thankfully, in the best tradition of 18th-century opera, the two reconciled on today’s date in 1704, dining together and attending a Hamburg rehearsal of Handel’s first opera, Almira, becoming, as Mattheson put it, “better friends than ever.”

George Frederic Handel (1685-1757) Oboe Concerto No. 3; Heinz Holliger, oboe; English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard, cond. Philips 454 363