Composers Datebook

The short career of Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the more tragic “might-have-beens” of American music history. Griffes died at 35 in 1920 just as his music was being taken up by the major American orchestras of his day.

As most American composers of his time, Griffes studied in Germany, and his early works were, not surprisingly, rather Germanic in tone. But beginning around 1911, he began composing works inspired by French impressionism and the art of Asia.

The Boston Symphony, under Pierre Monteux, premiered his tone poem The Pleasure Dome of Kubla-Khan and the New York Symphony, under Walter Damrosch, his Poeme for flute and orchestra. On today’s date in 1919, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Leopold Stokowski, premiered four orchestral pieces: Nocturne, Bacchanale, Clouds and one of his best works, The White Peacock. The Philadelphia newspaper reviews of the premieres called Griffes’ work “one of the hopeful intimations for the future of American music.”

A severe bout of influenza left Griffes too weak to attend these Philadelphia premieres under Stokowski, and he died of a lung infection the following spring.

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) The White Peacock; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Dorian 90224

In the section of his autobiography on the 1960s, Aaron Copland wrote:

“I have often called myself a ‘work-a-year’ man … and 1964 belonged to the band piece ‘Emblems.’ Among the invitations I received to compose new pieces was one from clarinetist Keith Wilson, who was president of the College Band Directors National Association, for a work to be played at the organization’s national convention.

“I hesitated for a moment,” Copland continued, “but accepted when I was told that the piece would be bought sight unseen by at least two hundred bands!”

Emblems premiered in Tempe, Arizona, on today’s date in 1964, performed by the USC Band, conducted by William Schaefer.

Here’s how Copland explained the work’s title: “An emblem stands for something. … I called this work ‘Emblems’ because it seemed to me to suggest musical states of being: noble or aspirational feelings, playful or spirited feelings.”

Close listeners might hear harmonic echoes of the spiritual “Amazing Grace” in the slow opening and close of Emblems.

Copland said, "Curiously, the harmonies had been conceived without reference to that tune. It was only by chance that I realized a connection between my harmonies and ‘Amazing Grace’!"

Aaron Copland (1900-1990) Emblems; U.S. Marine Band; Lt. Col. Michael J. Colburn, cond. Naxos 8. 570243

When Franz Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, he left behind several manuscripts of symphonies unpublished and, in some cases, unperformed during his short lifetime. It wasn’t until today’s date in 1865 — 37 years after Schubert’s death — that his most famous symphony received its premiere performance in his hometown of Vienna.

This Symphony in B-minor came to be called the Unfinished, since its manuscript score contained only two completely finished movements. A normal Viennese symphony of Schubert’s time should contain four movements, and, in fact, a fairly complete piano sketch of the third movement exists, as does a full score of just the first nine measures of that same movement.

When Johann van Herbeck conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in the first performance in 1865, he tacked on the last movement of Schubert’s Third Symphony as a finale. More recently, some scholars have argued that a portion of Schubert’s Rosamunde incidental music was in fact the missing final movement of his symphony.

Despite these attempts to finish the Unfinished, most performers and audiences seem content to hear the score as Schubert left it — romantically cut short, just like the composer’s tragically short life.

Franz Schubert (1795-1828) Symphony No. 8 (arr. Brian Newbould); Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Neville Marriner, cond. Philips 412 176

Nostalgic fans of old-time radio and TV shows will have no trouble recognizing the overture to Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek’s comic opera Donna Diana as the signature theme for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, an adventure series set in the far North that chronicled the exploits of a Royal Canadian Mountie and his loyal husky, Yukon King.

This music, however, had its real birth on today’s date in 1894 at the New German Theater of Prague, where Reznicek’s opera had its first performance. Reznicek wrote other operas, but Donna Diana was his one international hit. Gustav Mahler thought highly of it and conducted its premiere in Vienna in 1904.

In 1932, Reznicek and another famous composer, Richard Strauss, formed an international society for composers. When Reznicek resisted a Nazi takeover of that organization in 1942, the 82-year-old was punished by having his music confiscated by the Propaganda Ministry. His death three years later amid the bombed-out rubble of Berlin was a sad one. Reznicek died in 1945 of typhoid fever aggravated by starvation.

It was a tragic end for a composer best known for such lighthearted music!

Emil von Reznicek (1860-1945) Donna Diana Overture; Symphony Nova Scotia; Georg Tintner, cond. CBC 5167

A color wheel is a circular chart showing the relationship of the colors of the spectrum. It was originally fashioned by Isaac Newton in 1666 and still serves as a useful tool for painters and graphic designers today.

Color Wheel also is the title of an orchestral showpiece by American composer Aaron Jay Kernis — a work that was premiered on today’s date in 2001 by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the opening concerts of the then-new Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

“The honor of being asked to compose the first music played in this new hall led me to conceive of a ‘miniature’ concerto for orchestra which treats it as a large and dynamic body of sound and color,” Kernis said.

“I sometimes see colors when I compose,” he confessed, “and the qualities of certain chords do elicit specific sensation in me — for example, I see A-major as bright yellow. I’ve also been fascinated with Sufi whirling dervishes and their ecstatic spinning. This work may have some ecstatic moments but it is full of tension, continuous energy and drive.”

Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) Color Wheel; Nashville Symphony; Giancarlo Guerrero, cond. Naxos 8.559838

On today’s date in 1918, the Metropolitan Opera in New York offered the world premiere performance of not one, not two, but three new operas by Giacomo Puccini.

The three one-act operas are collectively billed as Il Trittico, or The Triptych. In order of their presentation at the Met, the triptych consisted of Il Tabarro (The Cloak), a rather sordid tale of passion and murder, followed by a sentimental tear-jerker titled Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica, after its Romantic heroine), and, for a comic finale, Gianni Schicchi, titled after the resourceful hero of its comic plot.

Musical America reported a warm welcome for the three new Puccini operas, but did find Il Tabarro “in the main, black and brutal.” In that journal’s opinion, the hit of the evening was the comic opera, Gianni Schicci. In particular, one brief soprano aria from that opera so pleased the first-night audience that it had to be encored.

Over time, this little aria, “O Mio Babbino Caro,” has become one of Puccini’s greatest hits and has even cropped up in the soundtracks of movies such as A Room With a View and G.I. Jane.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) Gianni Schicchi; Angela Gheorghiu, soprano; London Symphony; Antonio Pappano, cond. EMI 56587

On today’s date in 1836, Chopin held a soiree in his apartment in Paris. The famous tenor Adolphe Nourit sang some Schubert songs, accompanied by Chopin’s friend, Franz Liszt. Liszt and Chopin then played a new sonata for piano four-hands by Ignaz Moscheles.

In attendance was a petite, olive-skinned baroness turned writer known by her pen name, George Sand. Sand was notorious for her racy novels and for her highly unorthodox lifestyle. She liked cigars, for example, and often showed up at parties wearing men's clothing without the required permit.

Chopin had met her earlier and was not at first impressed. The 26-year-old composer was engaged to a much younger woman back home in Poland, a pale beauty who couldn’t be more unlike the 32-year-old Sand. But, anxious to make a good impression, Sand showed up for Chopin’s soiree wearing white pantaloons and a scarlet sash (the colors of the Polish flag) — and left her stogies at home!

All it took was a “Dear Frederic” letter from the girl back home, and before long the Chopin-Sand romance was the talk of Paris.

“My heart was conquered,” Chopin wrote in his journal. “She understood me.”

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) Polonaise in C-sharp; Garrick Ohlsson, piano; Arabesque 6642

1685 was a good year for composers: Bach, Scarlatti and Handel were all born in 1685, as was, on today’s date, Italian composer Lodovico Giustini.

Like Bach, Giustini came from a family of musicians, and he began his career by succeeding his father as church organist, eventually landing the prize organ post at his hometown cathedral, a position he retained for the rest of his life. Giustini also took up a new-fangled keyboard instrument known as the forte-piano, which, unlike the harpsichord, struck the instrument’s strings with small hammers rather than plucking them like a harp. This new technology allowed music to be played loud and soft (piano and forte), with a more nuanced range of dynamics and phrasing.

Giustini’s claim to fame is that in 1732 he published the first collection of sonatas written specifically for the instrument we now call the piano. Although Giustini’s sonatas attracted little attention when they were first published, since only a few wealthy royals could afford to own these new and expensive instruments, over the next two centuries thousands of pianos — and piano sonatas — began appearing in even the most modest of musical households.

Lodovico Giustini (1685-1743) Canzona, from Sonata No. 12; Andrea Coen, fortepiano Brilliant Classics 94021

The adjective most commentators turn to when describing the six symphonies of Carl Nielsen is “quirky.” Certainly, the great Danish composer had a wicked sense of humor and loved poking fun at anything pompous and pretentious — including the conventions of writing a symphony. Just when the audience members think they know what is going to happen next — or should, in a conventional symphony — Nielsen delighted in throwing them a curveball.

For example, as any seasoned concertgoer knows, in most cases when the strings start playing what sounds like a fugue theme, you have a reasonable expectation that the end must be near.

But in Nielsen’s last symphony, his Sixth, titled Sinfonia semplice or A Simple Symphony, which premiered in Copenhagen on today’s date in 1925, all sorts of crazy things happen in the last movement. And, since everyone knows the bassoon is supposed to be “the clown of the orchestra,” Nielsen’s parting shot is to give that instrument the last word — deflating any lofty expectations of a grand Romantic symphonic finale with what most politely could be described as giving that idea the raspberries.

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) – Symphony No. 6 (Sinfonia Semplice); San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, cond. Decca  425 607

Wolfgang Mozart died on Dec. 5, 1791, leaving behind an unfinished Requiem Mass, commissioned anonymously by Count Franz von Walsegg, a 28-year-old Austrian nobleman who had the ignoble habit of passing off works he commissioned as his own. The Requiem was intended to be a memorial to the count’s 20-year-old wife, Anna, who had died earlier that year.

Mozart’s wife, Constanza, arranged for some of Mozart’s pupils to complete the unfinished Requiem and eventually delivered it to Count Walsegg in order to receive the full commission fee promised her husband.

But just five days after Mozart’s death in 1791, the portions of the Requiem that Mozart had completed were sung at a memorial service organized by his friend and collaborator Emanuel Schikaneder.

Schikaneder was the librettist for Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute and ran his own opera house at the Theater auf der Wieden in a Viennese suburb. It was there that Mozart’s Magic Flute had premiered, and it was Schikaneder’s musicians who performed parts of Mozart’s Requiem for the first time on today’s date in 1791, at St. Michael’s Church in the center of Vienna.

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) Requiem