Composers Datebook

Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier is a collection of 48 preludes and fugues for solo keyboard in two sets, each covering all 24 major and minor keys.  This music has become a Bible for pianists as well as a challenge for subsequent composers to try to imitate. In the early 1990s, American composer and pianist Henry Martin tossed his hat into the ring with the completion of his own first set of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, and soon after published a second set of 24.

On today’s date in 1992, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., pianist Sara Davis Buechner performed three of Martin’s Preludes and Fugues for broadcast on NPR and later made recordings of all of Martin’s “48.”

One enthusiastic reviewer of those recordings, Michael Barone, host of American Public Media’s PIPEDREAMS organ program, wrote of Martin’s music, “We get shades of Debussy's impressionism, the vibrant jazzy riffs of Art Tatum, the spacey harmonies of John Coltrane, and the sophisticated improvisations of Bill Evans … but Martin's own individual genius shines brightly.”

Barone’s enthusiasm resulted in his commissioning Henry Martin to compose another set of 24 preludes and fugues – this time for organ!  We think Bach would have approved.

Henry Martin (b. 1950) — Prelude & Fugue #1 in G (Ken Cowan, organ) Pipedreams 1004

It’s Christmas Day, and if you’ve ever been out “caroling, caroling” you might have sung this well-known staple by American composer Alfred Burt, a jazz trumpeter from Michigan who composed 15 beloved Christmas carols.  His were a continuation of a family tradition – begun back in the 1920s by his father, the Reverend Bates G. Burt, who – every year – composed a new one to send in a seasonal greeting card to friends and family.

Fast forward to the 21st century, when Minnesota composer Abbie Betinis would celebrate Christmas with her Burt family relatives in Michigan. “I knew there were certain carols we’d sing – even joyful ones – that could make everyone cry... and I realized later that these were our family carols. They helped us remember the generations before and feel connected to them and to their traditions.  So I thought maybe I should write one myself.”

And write she did.  With composition degrees from St Olaf College and the University of Minnesota, Abbie Burt Betinis, the great-granddaughter of Reverend Burt, has been writing an annual carol since 2001 – each one premiering on Minnesota Public Radio – before being sent to mailboxes across America as the new Burt Family Christmas card.

Alfred Burt (1920-1954) — “Caroling Caroling” (Choral Guild of Atlanta, William Noll, cond.) Sony 62698

Abbie Burt Betinis (b.1980) — “Carol of the Stranger” (Vox Nova Chorale) MPR 201711

On today’s date in 1936, just one day after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1, the young American composer Samuel Barber attended the premiere of his String Quartet No. 1. Both premieres took place in Rome, where Barber was enjoying the benefits of the Prix de Rome, which included a two-year residency at the American Academy in the “Eternal City.”

Barber found Rome a congenial place to compose but found writing a string quartet hard going: “I have started a new quartet,” he wrote back home in one letter, “but how difficult it is. It seems to me that because we have so forced our personalities on Music – on Music, who never asked for them! – that we have lost elegance, and if we cannot recapture elegance, the quartet form has escaped us forever.”

It’s perhaps debatable whether Barber recaptured “elegance” in his new quartet, but “eloquence” is another matter: The new quartet’s slow “adagio” was described as being “deeply felt and written with economy, resourcefulness and distinction” according to one critic after a New York performance the following year. Barber later recast this movement for full string orchestra, and, as Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” it’s become one of the best-loved pieces of modern American music.

Samuel Barber (1910–1981) — String Quartet Op. 11 (Tokyo String Quartet) RCA/BMG 61387

On today’s date in 1903, a baby boy was born in the Russian railroad station of Parfianovka. The proud parents of little Vladimir Dukelsky were both musical, and so lulled him to sleep with Italian opera arias – presumably the SLOW ones!

Not surprisingly, little Vladimir grew up to become a composer. After the Russian Revolution, Dukelsky ended up playing the piano at movie theaters and cabarets in Constantinople. It was there that he first heard the music of George Gershwin.

In 1921, Dukelsky came to the United States and thereafter pursued a remarkable dual career: as Vladimir Dukelsky, he composed concert music for the likes of the Ballet Russe and the Boston Symphony; as “Vernon Duke,” following Gershwin’s example, he composed popular songs for Broadway and Hollywood. Some of his songs, like “April in Paris” and “Autumn in New York,” became pop standards.

Said Vladimir Dukelsky, “There isn’t a note of jazz in my serious music, and there are no symphonic overtones in my musical-comedy output. My versatility, far from being a boon, has in reality been infuriating… The critical boys seem to think there is something monstrous about a composer writing two different kinds of music under two different names.”

Vladimir Dukelsky (1903 – 1969) — Zephyr et Flore Ballet (Hague Orchestra; Gennady Rozhdestvensky, cond.) Chandos 9766

Vernon Duke (1903 – 1969) — Autumn in New York (Dawn Upshaw, soprano; orchestra; Eric Stern, cond.) Nonesuch 79531

One of the finest music schools in the world opened its doors in Philadelphia on today’s date in 1924. The Curtis Institute of Music was founded with a $12 million dollar grant from Mary Louise Curtis Bok. For many decades, that initial grant provided full scholarships for all Curtis students. According to Mrs. Bok, “The aim is for quality of work rather than quick, showy results."

Distinguished Curtis alumni have included performers like Hilary Hahn, Peter Serkin, and Richard Goode. And here’s an impressive statistic: today Curtis alumni occupy nearly 25% of the principal desk positions in the top five American symphony orchestras.

Curtis also graduated many famous composers as well, including Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, and Ned Rorem.

To help celebrate its 75th anniversary in 1999, the Curtis Institute commissioned a new orchestral work from the American composer Jennifer Higdon, who had joined the school’s faculty. Her “Blue Cathedral” was premiered by the Curtis Symphony in the spring of 2000. Higdon says her music is like “a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing – and of that song called life.”

That description seems to fit the Curtis Institute as well.

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) — Blue Cathedral (Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, cond.) Telarc 80596

On today’s date in 1991, Herbert Blomstedt led the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus in the premiere of a cantata entitled “Genesis,” by the American composer Charles Wuorinen. This was the culmination of Wuorinen’s four-year association with the San Francisco Symphony as its composer-in-residence.

The most famous setting of the Biblical Genesis story is Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation,” but early on Wuorinen decided his cantata would be a non-narrative, non-programmatic treatment, although incorporating a Latin version of the Genesis text.

Musically, as the music critic Michael Steinberg noted, Wuorinen’s style fuses the physicality and punch of Stravinsky with Schoenberg’s struc­tural principles. The resulting music, which some have dubbed “maximalist” is complex and demanding – just as its composer intended.

Charles Wuorinen writes, “In any medium, entertainment is that which we can receive and enjoy passively, without effort, without our putting anything into the experience.  Art is that which requires some initial effort from the receiver, after which the experience received may indeed be entertaining, but also transcending as well.  Art is like nuclear fusion: you have to put something into it to get it started, but you get more out of it in the end than what you put in.”

Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938) — Genesis (Minnesota Chorale and Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond.) Koch 7336

On today’s date in 1947, the German composer Hans Eisler, who had been living in the United States since 1938, was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

This was some years before Joseph McCarthy headed the investigations, but one member of the committee was a first-term Californian congressman by the name of Richard M. Nixon, who, like other committee members, was eager to expose Communist agents, who they feared were undermining American values by infiltrating and influencing the film industry.

Hans Eisler, who had been working in Hollywood since 1942, was a prime suspect. While Eisler did have leftist sympathies, there was no evidence of his being a Soviet agent, and as a film music composer, he had no ideological influence on the scripts or even the topics of the films on which he worked.

Celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, Thomas Mann, Igor Stravinsky, and Aaron Copland all rallied to his defense, but to no avail. The mood of the country in the early days of the Red Scare was such that Eisler was banned from working in Hollywood, and eventually, like his old friend Bertold Brecht, settled in Communist East Germany, where he died in 1962.

Hanns Eisler (1898 – 1962) — Deutsche Sinfonie, Op. 50 (Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Lothar Zagrosek, cond.) London 448 389

On today’s date in 1853, the Viennese Theatrical News wrote: “At the big ball at Unger’s Casino, Josef Strauss performed his new waltz, entitled ‘The First and the Last,’ which had to be encored no less than six times.”

That occasion marked the debut of Josef Strauss as composer and occurred just a few weeks after the debut of Josef Strauss as conductor. Josef was the younger brother of the popular waltz king, Johann Strauss, Jr., and initially embarked on a non-musical career as a talented architect, mathematician, and civil engineer. Josef had designed the waterworks for an Austrian town, devised a new table of logarithms for secondary school use, and invented a new street cleaning machine approved by the Vienna City Council.

And then, one night, his older brother collapsed from overwork and dutifully Josef took over directing the family orchestra. Since everyone assumed that ALL the Strauss family wrote music, he agreed to write a “one off” waltz he titled “The first AND the last.” Well, it proved so popular that Josef Strauss followed it with another, entitled “The First AFTER the Last.”

Josef Strauss then bowed to destiny, bid his engineering and scientific career ‘adieu’, and joined the family music concern.

Josef Strauss (1827 - 1870) — Lullaby Waltz (Budapest Strauss Symphony; Alfred Walter, cond.) Marco Polo 8.223561

Today’s date marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott.  Born in Edinburgh in 1771, he became Scotland’s most famous novelist, poet, playwright, and historian. His works were wildly popular throughout Europe and America in the 19th Century and attracted the attention of many famous composers.

Franz Schubert was a fan and set several of Scott’s poems to music.  In fact, Schubert’s beloved setting of “Ave Maria” was originally written to words from Scott’s poem “The Lady of the Lake. “ Rossini based an opera on “The Lady of Lake” – “La Donna del Lago” being its Italian title -- and Donizetti’s opera “Lucia di Lammermoor” is based on Scott’s novel “The Bride of Lammermoor.”

There are TWO operas based on “Ivanhoe,” Scott’s popular historical novel about medieval Templar knights: the Austrian composer Otto Nicolai made an Italian-language version entitled “Il Templaro,” and the German composer Heinrich Marschner a German-language version called “Der Templer und die Jüdin.”

The Frenchman Georges Bizet based his opera “La jolie fille de Perth” on Scott’s novel “The Fair Maid of Perth,” and the “Rob Roy” concert overture by Hector Berlioz takes its inspiration from the Scott novel of the same name.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) – Rob Roy Overture (Montreal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, cond.) London/Decca 421 193

Today is the birthday of a 20th century composer who was born in Spain, came of age in Cuba, and, in his later years, was a resident of the United States.  His name was Julián Orbón, who was born in Avilés, Spain, on today’s date in 1925 and died in Miami Beach in 1991.

Orbón began composing at an early age, came to Cuba with his family when he was 10, and by his twenties was active as a music critic, essayist and pianist at concerts of contemporary Cuban music. He was a member of Grupo de Renovación Musical, or “The Group for Musical Renewal.” In 1946 he studied with Copland at Tanglewood and returned home to serve as director of the Orbón Conservatory in Havana, a music school founded by his father.

After the Cuban revolution, Orbón taught first at the National Conservatory in Mexico City, and then, after settling in the United States in 1964, at a number of American schools, including Washington University, Barnard College, and the Hispanic Institute at Columbia.

By then, Orbón was also a successful and award-winning composer of works often infused with the rhythms and colors of Cuban music and traditions.

Julián Orbón (1925 - 1991) – Concerto Grosso (Latinoamericano Quartet; Simon Bolivar Symphony; Eduardo Mata, cond.) Dorian 90178