Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 2000, the Boston Symphony gave the premiere performance of the Second Symphony of American composer John Corigliano. For strings alone, the symphony was a reworking of a string quartet that Corigliano had composed for the farewell tour of the Cleveland Quartet in 1996.

The symphony was well received, and the following year was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music.

“I am more than shocked. ... I don't know what to say,” Corigliano said upon receiving the news. “It's one of the great surprises of my life.”

Perhaps doubly surprising, since, as a young man, Corigliano pretty much ruled out writing even one symphony, let alone two.

“My thought then,” he said, “was that there were so many great symphonies [already]. I could satisfy only my ego by writing yet another. Only the death of countless friends from AIDS prompted me to write my Symphony No. 1. ... A world-scale tragedy, I felt, needed a comparably epic form.

“Then the Boston [asked] that I write a second symphony to honor the l00th anniversary of their justly famous Symphony Hall. At first I declined, stating my earlier reservations, but they were quite insistent.”

John Corigliano (b. 1938) String Quartet; Cleveland Quartet Telarc 80415

Utah came to the stage of Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, musically speaking, on this date in 1989, when the Orchestra of St. Luke’s premiered Utah Symphony, by American composer John Duffy. His Symphony No. 1 was commissioned by Gibbs Smith, the president of the Utah chapter of the Sierra Club to draw attention to the endangered and pristine wilderness lands of that state.

Duffy knew this region firsthand.

“I began sketching the symphony while hiking through southeastern Utah in the spring of 1988,” he said. “The landscape astounded me: Dramatic contrasts of light and shadow ... violent changes in weather ... expansive vistas. Here in the ancient Indian ruins, canyons, cathedral-like Mesas and fantastical slabs of rock is a spiritual presence and aesthetic wonder of pure, majestic, humbling wilderness.”

Duffy is perhaps best known for writing the score to the 9-hour PBS documentary series Heritage: Civilization and the Jews. He was born in the Bronx and studied with Aaron Copland and Henry Cowell.

In addition to composing over 300 works, in 1974, Duffy founded Meet the Composer, an organization dedicated to the creation, performance and recording of music by American composers.

John Duffy (1926-2015) Symphony No. 1 (Utah); Milwaukee Symphony; Zdenek Macal, cond. Koss 1022

On today’s date in 1843, a composer dubbed “The Chopin of America” was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His name was Manuel Gregorio Tavárez, born to a French father and Puerto Rican mother. He began his musical studies in San Juan but at 15 moved to France to study at the Paris Conservatory with two leading French composers of the day, Daniel Auber and Eugen D'Albert.

While in Paris, Tavárez suffered a stroke that paralyzed his left hand and affected his hearing. He returned to Puerto Rico, overcame those problems and after giving several recitals in San Juan, became a piano teacher.

As a composer, Tavárez developed an original dance form called danza — similar to the waltz but tinged with Afro-Cuban rhythms from the Caribbean and the wistful melancholy of European Romantic composers.

Tavárez gave his works evocative titles such as La Sensitiva (The Sensitive One), La Ausencia (Absense), Un Recuerdito (A Little Remembrance) and Pobre Corazón (Poor Heart), but the title of his most famous danza, written in 1870, was simply a woman’s name: Margarita.

Like Chopin, Tavárez lived only 39 years. He died in 1883.

Manuel Gregorio Tavárez (1843-1883) Margarita; Kimberley Davis, p. from “La Ondina: Una Colección de Música Puertorriqueña para Piano” (digital album)

At 2 p.m. on today’s date in 1855, the first in a series of afternoon chamber music concerts was given at Dodworth’s Hall in New York City.

As a contemporary newspaper put it, “In consequence of the numerous evening engagements of the city, and to enable ladies to be present without escort, it is proposed to give matinees in preference to soirees.”

The concert was a great success, and many of the fashionably dressed ladies who attended were forced to stand, as all available seats were already occupied.

In addition to classics by Schubert and Mendelssohn, the audience heard new music, the American premiere of a recently published piano trio by 21-year old German composer Johannes Brahms. The New York Times opined that the Brahms contained “many good points and much sound musicianship” but possessed also “the defects of a young writer; ... the motives seldom fall on the ear freshly.”

It's doubtful that Brahms ever saw that review or even knew that his new trio had been played in America. But in 1889, 35 years later, Brahms extensively revised his youthful work, transforming his first major chamber work into his last.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Piano Trio No. 1 (1854 version); Odeon Trio Capriccio 10 633

Music — Beethoven’s music, in particular — played an important role in the life of Schroeder, a piano-playing character in Peanuts, the comic strip created by Charles Schulz, who was born in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1922.

But new music snuck in the strip on occasion, too. In a 1990 installment, Peppermint Patty is at a young person’s concert and when informed that American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich had won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, stands up and yells, ''Way to go, Ellen!''

Turns out Schulz had been impressed by a piece by Zwilich that he heard at a concert, and the cartoonist and composer struck up a friendship. So when Zwilich was asked to write a new work for a young people’s concert at Carnegie Hall, the result was a suite titled Peanuts Gallery.

Its 1997 premiere was acknowledged in a Sunday Peanuts strip that had Schroeder telling Lucy about the new work.

“We're all in it,” he says, and goes on to list the movements, including “Schroeder's Beethoven Fantasy,” “Lullaby for Linus” and “Lucy Freaks Out.”

Of course, Lucy's only comment is: “My part should be longer.''

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939) Peanuts Gallery; Jeffrey Biegel, p; Florida State University Symphony; Alexander Jiménez, cond. Naxos 8.559656

On today’s date in 2005, the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the premiere performance of a new Percussion Concerto by American composer Jenifer Higdon. The soloist was Colin Currie, a Scottish virtuoso for whom the work was tailor made.

In program notes for her work, Higdon wrote, “When writing a concerto, I think of two things: the particular soloist for whom I am writing and the nature of the solo instrument. In the case of percussion, this means a large battery of instruments, from vibraphone and marimba (the favorite instrument of soloist Colin Currie), to nonpitched smaller instruments like brake drums, wood blocks or Peking Opera gongs.

“Not only does a percussionist have to perfect playing all these instruments, he must make decisions regarding the use of sticks and mallets ... not to mention the choreography. ... Where most performers do not have to concern themselves with movement across the stage during a performance, a percussion soloist must have every move memorized.”

Higdon’s new concerto proved popular with both audiences and the critics, and in 2010 the work won that year’s Grammy for best classical contemporary composition.

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Percussion Concerto; Colin Currie, percussion; London Philharmonic; Marin Alsop, cond. LPO CD 0035

On today’s date in 1949, at Carnegie Hall, Leopold Stokowski conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of the last major work of American composer Carl Ruggles.

In a letter to his friend Charles Ives, or “Charlie” as he called him, Ruggles hinted that in this piece, he was perhaps, "stumbling on something new.” Another composer-friend, Edgard Varèse, agreed, but wrote: “The use [of intervals of] 5ths and 4ths is very remarkable, because that was done hundreds of years ago — let’s call it Organum.” And so Organum, a word referring to an early medieval polyphony, became the title of Ruggles’ final orchestral piece.

After that, Ruggles, then already 73, pretty much gave up on the musical establishment and devoted himself to painting. In 1966, he moved to a nursing home, where he died in 1971 at 95.

Shortly before his death, Ruggles was visited by Michael Tilson Thomas, who recalls the feisty old man saying, “Now don’t go feeling sorry [for me]. I don’t hang around this place, you know. Hell, each day I go out and make the universe anew — all over!”

Carl Ruggles (1876-1971) Organum; Japan Philharmonic; Akeo Watanabe, cond. CRI 715

In 1834, the great violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini acquired a new Stradivarius viola. He approached 30-year-old French composer Hector Berlioz and commissioned him to write a viola concerto.

What Berlioz came up with, however, was a Romantic program symphony with a prominent part for solo viola, Harold in Italy, inspired by Byron’s narrative poem “Childe Harold.” Paganini was disappointed.

“That is not what I want,” he said. “I am silent a great deal too long. I must be playing the whole time.”

And so, when Harold in Italy was first performed, at the Paris Conservatory on today’s date in 1834, it was an old classmate of Berlioz’s, Chrétien Urhan, who was the soloist, not the superstar Paganini. The audience seemed to like the “Pilgrims’ March” movement of the symphony, which was encored, but otherwise the performance was one train wreck after another.

Four years later, however, Berlioz had the last laugh when Paganini, hearing the music he commissioned at a better performed concert, rose from the audience, mounted the stage and publicly declared Berlioz a genius, and, two days later, presented the stunned Berlioz with a check for 20,000 francs.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) Harold in Italy; Nobuko Imai, viola; London Symphony; Colin Davis, cond. Philips 416 431

If you’re a baby boomer, you probably remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

On that day, American composer Warren Benson was just beginning to work on a commission he had received for a new work for wind band. Maybe the trauma of that day unleashed some creative power in Benson, but whatever the reason, the resulting music is both intense and moving. He titled his piece The Leaves Are Falling, a line from Rainer Maria Rilke's “Autumn,” a poem that evokes a sense of a passing season and a passing life. The Leaves Are Falling became Benson’s best-known work and a landmark score in the wind band repertory.

Born in 1924, Benson grew up in Detroit, studied at the University of Michigan and landed a job playing timpani in the Detroit Symphony. He served as a professor of percussion and composition at Ithaca College, and from 1967 until 1993, he taught composition at the Eastman School in Rochester, New York. He died in 2005.

Warren Benson (1924-2005): The Leaves Are Falling; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond. Centaur 2014

On today’s date in 1941, Greek-born conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos led the Minneapolis Symphony in the premiere performance of a new symphony by German composer Paul Hindemith, who came to Minnesota for the performance.

Mitropoulos was an ardent promoter of new music, but few of the contemporary works he programmed were welcomed by audiences or the critics with much enthusiasm. Hindemith’s reputation as an atonal composer had preceded him, but, surprisingly, his new piece for Minneapolis was billed as a “Symphony in E-flat Major” and, much to the delight of all concerned, featured recognizable tunes.

By chance, another famous composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, was in Minneapolis that day, and was invited by Mitropoulos to attend the Hindemith premiere backstage, where he wouldn’t be annoyed by autograph seekers. Rachmaninoff had a pessimistic view of modern music, but Mitropoulos was sure the famously dour Russian would like Hindemith’s resolutely tonal new symphony. Rachmaninoff was positioned just off stage, and after the end of the symphony, which was received with great applause, Mitropoulos passed him as he left the stage. “Well?” Mitropoulos asked. “No goooood,” was Rachmaninoff’s lugubrious response.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) Symphony in E-flat; BBC Philharmonic; Yan Pascal Tortelier, cond. Chandos 9060