Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1998 at King’s Chapel in Boston, a new work by American composer Daniel Pinkham received its first performance. Scored for baritone and organ, Three Latin Motets was intended as a birthday offering to Pinkham’s fellow composer and colleague Ned Rorem, with a dedication that read, “For Ned Rorem and a half century of friendship.”

But the premiere occurred on the Pinkham’s 75th birthday, as a surprise at a concert in his honor. Organist James David Christie and baritone Sanford Sylvan had sneakily persuaded him to write the motets for Rorem, who was born in 1923 — the same year as Pinkham — but intended all along to premiere the music as a surprise at a concert in his honor.

He was noted for his church music, and once quipped, “I just like to hear my pieces more than once, and when you write music for the church you have a better chance at that … I [tell people] am available for weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.”

Pinkham died in 2006, and Christie and Sylvan performed Three Latin Motets once again in January of 2007 — at Pinkham’s memorial service.

Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006): Three Latin Motets; Aaron Engebreth, baritone; Heinrich Christensen, organ; Florestan FRP-1003

In the early years of the 20th century, a hauntingly beautiful piece of Grecian sculpture — a bust of the head of the goddess Aphrodite — was donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Art. There it inspired this orchestral work by Boston composer George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick’s symphonic tone poem Aphrodite was, in the words of the composer, “an attempt to suggest in music the poetic and tragic scenes which may have passed before the sightless eyes of such a goddess.”

Chadwick composed this music during East Coast holidays on Martha’s Vineyard, inspired, he said, by the play of light and wind on the sea before him. It received its premiere at the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut on this date in 1912.

On today’s date in 1999, at a summer musical festival on the opposite coast of America, another musical work inspired by ancient Greece received its first performance. Five Images after Sappho was inspired by texts of ancient Greek poetess Sappho and written for the remarkable voice of American soprano Dawn Upshaw. It was premiered at the Ojai Festival in California, and was written by Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931): Aphrodite; Brno State Philharmonic; Jose Serebrier, conductor; Reference 74

Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958): Five Images after Sappho; Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 89158

LAUGH-IN was a popular TV comedy sketch program in the late 1960s and one of their recurring alliterative gag lines referred to “the fickle finger of fate.” Now, composers who enter — and lose — competitions, often mutter something similar — or stronger.

In London in 1703, three English composers, John Weldon, John Eccles, Daniel Purcell and Moravian-born Gottfried Finger took part in a competition organized by wealthy opera fans. All four composers were asked to set the same short English-language libretto, and the resulting works were all staged on today’s date for the audience to choose their favorite.

The grand prize of 100 guineas was won by Weldon, even though many bet on Eccles to win. Gottfried Finger came in dead last and was not happy about it. He left the country in disgust complaining that, “He had thought to be judged by men, not boys,” and that the competition was rigged.

And in his defense, some recent recordings of Finger’s virtuoso viola da gamba works show him to have been, in fact, a very good composer.

Even so, as the old LAUGH-IN hosts might put it, “Fun fact: fickle fans found Finger faulty. Finished fourth. Forthwith fuming foreigner fled.”

Gottfried Finger (ca. 1655-6-buried 31 August 1730): Sonatae pro Diversis Instrumentis; Echo du Danube; Accent CD 24264

When you listen to classical music like Bach or Mozart, you are taking a trip in a time machine. Or, as Shirley MacLaine might put it, “Classical music is the soundtrack of your previous lives.”

American composer Sebastian Currier went even further, and said: “It’s only a little bit of an exaggeration to say that music is made of nothing but time ­­— well, and air too … melodic or rhythmic gestures are made of a series of events moving forward in time. … the rest is air. A musician bows a string, blows air in a cylinder, strikes a metal object, and a series of sound waves take that information to our ears … It has always been fascinating to me that an art form that is so penetrating … is made of such ephemeral stuff.”

So no surprise Currier gave the title Time Machines to his work for violin and orchestra that premiered in New York City on today’s date in 2011. The German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was the soloist performing with the New York Philharmonic led by Alan Gilbert, and they made a live recording of the new work.

Sebastian Currier (b. 1959): Time Machines; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor (recorded live June 2, 2011); DG 477 9359

On today’s date in 1988, the New York Philharmonic gave a concert in a city then called Leningrad and in a country then called the Soviet Union.

For their visit to the city we now call St. Petersburg in a country known today as Russia, the Philharmonic commissioned a new work by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Her Symbolon received its premiere performance there, and, in fact, was first American symphonic work to be premiered in the USSR.

“The word ‘symbolon’ comes from the Greek and refers to the ancient custom whereby two parties broke a piece of pottery in two, each party retaining half. Each half (or symbolon) thus became a token of friendship. From the beginning, I knew this piece would receive its first performance in the Soviet Union, and I found this profoundly moving. I’m sure my complex feelings, embracing both hope and sadness about the state of the political world, found their way into this work,” she explained.

After its premiere, Zwilich’s Symbolon was performed in Moscow, New York, London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris and the former East Berlin, making it one of Zwilich’s “most-travelled” works.

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Symbolon; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor; New World CD

On today’s date in 1998, in Purchase, New York, the Westchester Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new flute concerto by 41-year old composer Melinda Wagner.

Her concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999 — a gratifying mark of recognition for Wagner, who claims she had developed 20 years of calluses from all the rejections that are the common experience of most young composers in America. Along with the bumps and scrapes, Wagner had picked up a number of other honors along the way, including awards, grants, and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, to name just a few.

“Composition is like writing a kind of love letter to performers. They will be interpreting something that is incredibly personal, so it feels like a love affair. As for the audience, to try to try to second-guess them to figure out what they’re going to like, and write that, would be an insult to them. I just hope they can plug into the communication that’s happening between the performers and me,” she said.

Melinda Wagner (b. 1957): Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion; Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute; Westchester Philharmonic; Mark Mandarano, conductor; Bridge 9098

On today’s date in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach began his formal duties as the new Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, a city that would remain his home for the next 27 years.

A newspaper item datelined Leipzig had appeared the previous day, noting: “This past Saturday at noon, four wagons loaded with household goods arrived here from Cöthen; they belonged to the former Princely Cappelmeister Johann Sebastian Bach, now called to Leipzig as Cantor. He himself arrived with his family on two carriages at 2:00 and moved into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School.”

Bach was not the first choice for the appointment, and it’s clear from the proceedings of the Leipzig Town Council that they were more concerned with Bach as a teacher rather than Bach as a composer. Providing quality music for services at St. Thomas Church might have been foremost in Bach’s mind, but the council seemed to think that was definitely not as important as teaching Latin to the young students of the St. Thomas School.

One council member, a certain Dr. Steger, after reluctantly voting for Bach, even wanted it on record that in his opinion, “Bach should make compositions that were not theatrical.” It’s not on record what poor Dr. Steger thought of Bach’s intensely dramatic St. Matthew Passion, or the hundreds of brilliant crafted cantatas that Bach would provide, week in and week out, for the next 20 years.

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 73; Leonhardt Consort; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor; Teldec 44279

Today’s date marks the anniversary of one of the most famous — and notorious — premieres in the history of classical music, that of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), in Paris on May 29, 1913.

From its first note — sounded by the bassoon at the extreme end of its highest register — Stravinsky’s score signaled the start of something radically different. It’s also remembered as the occasion of one of the most emotional reactions by any audience: catcalls and insults were hurled between the composer’s supporters and detractors, fistfights broke out and finally the police were called.

There were those, including Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the premiere, who felt the reactions were occasioned more by the dancing and the stage picture than by the music itself.

Years later, when Monteux was asked what he thought of the original production, he confessed to everyone’s amusement that he actually never saw it, because his eyes were glued to the score. “On hearing this near riot behind me, I decided to keep the orchestra together at any cost … I did, and we played it to the end absolutely as we had rehearsed it in the peace of an empty theatre,” he wrote.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): The Rite of Spring; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Georg Solti, conductor; London 436 469

On today's date in 1938, Matthias the Painter, an opera by the German composer Paul Hindemith, had its premiere performance in Zurich, Switzerland.

This work had been scheduled to be premiered in 1934 at the Berlin Opera by the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, but the newly-installed Nazi regime canceled the performance.

In protest, Furtwangler performed a concert suite from Hindemith’s opera at a Berlin Philharmonic concert, resulting in a loud pro-Hindemith demonstration on the part of the audience. The Nazi press responded with attacks on both Hindemith and Furtwangler. By the end of 1934 it was clear to all in Germany that the Nazis would brook no opposition when it came to cultural matters.

So how had the quintessentially German Hindemith offended the new regime? In 1929 Hitler had attended the premiere of another Hindemith opera, News of the Day, and hated it — labeling it “degenerate.” Furthermore, his wife and many of his closest musician friends were Jewish. Hindemith became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, and, shortly after the Zurich premiere of his new opera, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Tanglewood and Yale, becoming an American citizen in 1946.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Mathis der Maler; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; EMI 55237

On today’s date in 1992, during the bloody civil wars that shattered the former Yugoslavia, a hand grenade was thrown into the midst of a bread line in Sarajevo. Twenty-two people died. To most around the world, it appeared to be just one more senseless act of violence amidst the thousands of such acts took place in that unhappy part of the world.

One Sarajevo resident thought otherwise. At 4 p.m. every day after the incident, despite the danger, Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera, went to the site of the bombing in full evening dress and played his cello in memory of the dead. A New York Times reporter wrote of the cellist’s moving act of courage and faith in art and humanity — and the world took notice.

English-born composer David Wilde read about the cellist while riding a train in Germany. “As I sat in the train, deeply moved, I listened; and somewhere deep within me a cello began to play a circular melody like a lament without end,” he later recalled. That theme developed into The Cellist of Sarajevo, a piece dedicated to Vedran Smailovic, and which cellist Yo-Yo Ma was soon performing around the world.

David Wilde (1935-2025): The Cellist of Sarajevo; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Sony 64114