Composers Datebook

Today in 1948, about 50 members of the press were invited to New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for a demonstration of a new kind of phonograph record. A Columbia Records employee named Edward Wallerstein stood between a big stack of heavy, shellac, 78-rpm albums, the standard for recorded music in those days, and a noticeably slimmer stack of vinyl discs, a new format which Wallerstein had dubbed "LPs"—"long playing" records that spun at 33 and 1/3 revolutions per minute.

Before 1948, if you wanted to buy a recording of a complete symphony or concerto, it meant the purchase of up to a dozen separate 78s, each playing only four minutes a side. In developing its new LP-record, Columbia's goal was to fit complete classical works onto a SINGLE disc. "I timed I don't know how many works in the classical repertory," recalled Wallerstein, "and came up with a figure of seventeen minutes to a side. This would enable about 90% of all classical music to be put on two sides of one record."

Columbia's first LP release was a recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, with Nathan Milstein the soloist and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Bruno Walter.

The following year, Columbia struck pay dirt when it released the original cast album of a brand-new Broadway musical by Richard Rodgers. The 1949 Columbia LP of Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza singing the hit tunes from "South Pacific" became a best-seller, and by 1951 the LP-record had won: No one was making 78s anymore.

Today's date marks the 1953 New York premiere of a musical movie that flopped at the time but has since become a cult classic—and for two very good reasons.

First, the movie's script—written by Dr. Seuss—was about a little boy named Bart who didn't enjoy practicing the piano and who was worried that his widowed mom might marry the dreaded piano teacher, Dr. Terwilliker. The film, entitled "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T," is cast as Bart's dream—or nightmare—with surreal scenarios as only Dr. Seuss could imagine them.

Second, the film boasted a score by Frederick Hollaender, a composer of droll Berlin cabaret songs who found a welcome home for his talent in Hollywood. For "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T," Hollaender crafted witty songs and an extravagant instrumental sequence for a whacky Seussian ballet.

Despite all this, The New York Times reviewer was bored: "a ponderously literate affair," he wrote. Little kids who saw the film in 1953 weren't bored; on the contrary, they were scared silly by the movie. Too dull for The Times, too scary for kids, "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T" did not do well at the box office in 1953.

The film did have its fans, however, and one was a little boy who DID like to practice the piano—singer and pianist Michael J. Feinstein, who lovingly gathered together all of Hollaender's used and unused music for the movie for a limited edition CD-set released in 2010.

OK, violin soloists have it easy: there are thousands of violin concertos they can choose from, starting in the Baroque era of Bach and Vivaldi, and continuing right up to the present day, with new violin concertos available from composers from John Adams to Ellen Taaffe Zwlich.

Oboe concertos? Not so much. Oh, there are some very fine oboe concertos out there, but they just aren’t being written as often as new works for the violin or piano, it seems.

But on today’s date in 2010, a welcome new oboe concerto by the contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin received its premiere performance at the Concertgebouw in Amstrerdam. In describing his new work, Shechedrin wrote:

“It was my intention … to give expression to the entire palette of the tonal and technical qualities of this wonderful instrument. In my score there are however two further essential actors: the [English horn] which permanently imitates or answers the solo instrument … and the orchestra itself whose role is … not merely confined to the accompaniment of the soloist [but provides] the chance for individual musicians to demonstrate their great virtuosity in performance both within the ensemble and as soloists.”

Now, Rodion Shchedrin knows a thing or two about writing concertos and has written quite a few: for trumpet, cello, and viola; SIX concertos for piano -- as well as five showpiece “Concertos for Orchestra!”

For decades the Goldman Band was famous for its summertime concerts in New York parks. Founded in 1918 by Edwin Franko Goldman, the band was a well-rehearsed, first-rate ensemble capable of presenting both classic Sousa marches as well as brand-new works for symphonic band. And so, on today's date in 2001, at Damrosch Park next to Lincoln Center, it was the Goldman Memorial Band that premiered a new work for winds by the American composer Michael Torke, entitled "Grand Central Station." Now, everybody calls the big building at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan "Grand Central Station," but its official name is "Grand Central Terminal." Built by and named for the New York Central Railroad in the heyday of American long-distance passenger trains, it underwent major renovation in the 1990s, and Torke's score was inspired by the dazzle of the old station's new look. "As I wrote this piece," said Torke, "I thought of the tremendous energy of arrivals and departures, the swirling shapes and patterns of people with optimistic expectations. Newly renovated, Grand Central Station has that wonderful mix of the classically old, along with its shiny, new, welcoming appearance. Like the Goldman Band itself, it has decades of rich, New York history, but it is very much alive today." Although Grand Central is enjoying a new lease on life, the fabled Goldman Band was not so fortunate and disbanded in 2005.

If you're a baby boomer who played in a high school or college band, you'll probably remember the "Divertimento for Band" by the American composer, Vincent Persichetti, music that premiered on today's date in 1950, with the composer conducting the Goldman Band.

Persichetti didn't envision his "Divertimento" as a band work, per se. At the start, it was just some woodwind figures accentuated by brass and percussion. When Persichetti realized that violins and cellos just didn't seem to fit in the picture, "Divertimento" began to take shape in his mind as a work for winds, brass and percussion alone.

Persichetti went on to write a dozen more compositions for concert band. These pieces quickly entered the repertory of the thousands of high school and college bands that sprang up across the country in the years following World War II, institutions peopled by baby boomers, who, like Pesichetti's band compositions, were born in the 1950s and 60s.

Beyond his works for band, Persichetti was a prolific composer of keyboard, chamber and orchestra pieces. He once claimed that since musical ideas often came to him in his car, he liked to tape a piece of music paper to his steering wheel, so he could jot down ideas and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

Luckily for other residents of his hometown of Philadelphia, this apparently didn't result in any head-on collisions—but kids, don't try this at home!

The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen on today’s date in 1843. He is credited with putting Norway on the map, musically speaking, drawing inspiration from the folk music of his native land.

What you might not know is that two famous French composers were fans. Grieg was about 19 years older than Claude Debussy and about 32 years older than Maurice Ravel, but both knew and admired his music.

Despite criticizing Grieg’s Piano Concerto for being too much like Schumann’s, Debussy included Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata in one of his public recitals, praised Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” incidental music, and described Grieg’s songs as possessing “the icy coldness of the Nordic lakes [and] the intensive fire of the sudden Nordic spring.”

Ravel once played some of Grieg’s Norwegian dances for the composer in Paris, timidly at first, but when Grieg asked for a stronger beat, saying, “You should see our peasants with their fiddles stamping the rhythm with their feet. Start over!” Ravel complied, and the elder composer got up and started dancing. After Grieg’s death Ravel said: “Next to Debussy there’s no other composer to whom I feel more related than Grieg.”

A now-obscure Englishman named Charles Caleb Colton is credited with the famous quote that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." A number of great composers have been "flattered" in that fashion, too. On today's date in 1985, a new work by the American composer John Harbison premiered in Sarasota, Florida. It imitated the form and gestures of a Baroque Concerto Grosso in the style of J.S. Bach. Harbison's work was titled "Concerto for Oboe, Clarinet, and Strings." Harbison described his piece as follows: "The oboe, clarinet, and strings are equal partners. The first movement is declamatory, the second contemplative, and the last frenetic. Each movement sustains one affect [or mood], in the Baroque manner... The steady insistent rhythms are indeed baroque, the harmonies less so." "One astute writer," commented Harbison, "referred to the piece as 'scenes from a marriage.' This metaphorical marriage between solo winds and strings contains quarrels, precarious balances, comic relief, misunderstandings, and eventual unanimity." And, speaking of marriage, Harbison composed the work at Token Creek, in Wisconsin, an unincorporated community near Madison where his wife's family had farmed since the 1920s and where for some 25 years each summer John and Rose Mary Harbison have organized their own mini-Festival of chamber music.

It was on today’s date in 2003 that a new violin concerto by composer Shulamit Ran premiered at Carnegie Hall – but it would be just as appropriate for us to run this episode of COMPOSERS DATEBOOK on Mother’s Day – as Ran herself explains:

“Thoughts of my mother, Berta Ran, whose strength of spirit has been a profoundly significant guiding light throughout my life, have embedded themselves in various parts of this work. At the closing of the concerto, echoes of a familiar melody, one my mother sang to me in childhood with words of her own creation, appear, gently fading away.”

Shulamit Ran born in Tel Aviv in 1949 and moved to New York City at age 14 on a scholarship to Mannes College of Music. From 1973 to 2015, she taught at

the University of Chicago, and served as composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony. In 1991 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Commenting on winning the prestigious award, Ran admitted to being a little surprised:

“I feel I’ve always been out of step,” she said. “At times ... I was not considered avant- garde enough. Now, considering the current trend of accessibility, some think I’m too forbidding.”

In Cockney rhyming slang, being "Brahms and Liszt" means being tipsy.

But during the latter half of the 19th century, for many passionate music lovers, the phrase "Brahms and Liszt" signified opposite—and mutually exclusive—tastes in contemporary music. Oddly enough, it was the younger German, Johannes Brahms, who represented the more conservative, traditionally structured side of the spectrum, while the older Hungarian, Franz Liszt, represented a freer, less structured style, dubbed "the music of the future."

Brahms and Liszt first met on today's date in 1853, when Liszt was 41 and Brahms just 20 years old. The young American composer and pianist William Mason, also in his 20s, was present at the meeting, which took place at Liszt's home in Weimar. Mason recalled the historic encounter in his memoirs.

Liszt read at sight the manuscript of one of Brahms' early piano pieces, and praised the young composer's work. When pressed by those present for some of his own music, Liszt began playing his recently completed Sonata in B-Minor, arguably one of his finest works. Midway through the piece it became embarrassingly apparent that the young Johannes Brahms had fallen asleep in his chair.

Maybe it was the summer heat, perhaps sleep deprivation—or maybe, as some must have thought at the time, Brahms was just bored. In any case, Liszt was understandably miffed, and after finishing his Sonata, rose from the piano and left the room without a word.

On today's date in 1926, the American opera composer Carlisle Floyd was born in Latta, South Carolina. Floyd's ancestors were among the first to settle in the Carolinas, and many of his dozen or so operas are based on colonial, southern, or rural themes. For three decades Floyd taught piano and composition at the Florida State University in Tallahassee, and it was there that his most famous opera, "Susannah," was initially staged in 1955.

"Susannah" was an American retelling of the Biblical tale of Susannah and the elders, set in rural America. It was a tremendous success, and was soon taken up by the New York City Opera and was chosen to represent American opera at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. Since its première, "Susannah" has received nearly 300 productions and more than 800 performances in the United States and Europe. Opera America magazine included it among the top ten "most performed" American operas of all time.

When pressed once to articulate what it is about his music that strikes many listeners as quintessentially "American," Carlisle Floyd answers, "I'm probably the worst person to ask. I've never really set out consciously to write 'American' music. I don't know what that would be unless you mean the obvious Appalachian folk references in a good many of my pieces. I can tell you, however, that when I've seen my operas in Europe they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here."