Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 2009, Hilary Hahn premiered a new violin concerto by the American composer Jennifer Higdon, a work tailor-made for the violinist, according to Higdon:

“She’s got gorgeous tone in the top register, but also down really low, so I tried to utilize her entire range, her lyrical gift, her ability to play super fast and negotiate through complex meter changes… I sent off each movement as I finished it, and I kept thinking she was going to say, 'Oh, this is too hard,' but she said, 'It's my job, I'm going to learn it,' and boy she did.“

When asked if it wasn’t intimidating writing a violin concerto in the 21st century, considering the incredible legacy of great violin concertos already written, Higdon said a little intimidation is a good thing: “There's nothing like fear to get the imagination running. Starting a piece is the worst,” says Higdon, “and that can stretch from one day to three weeks of agony. The cats run and hide.”

Higdon’s Violin Concerto for Hilary Hahn won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the composer said she found out in a very 21st century fashion, when she noticed her cell phone was suddenly flooded with dozens and dozens of messages.

“I jumped up and down a little,” confesses Higdon—and that probably scared her cats, too.

The cats’ names, for the record, are Beau and Squeak.

It was in Vienna, on today’s date in 1907, that the String Quartet No. 1 in d minor of the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg had its first performance by the Rosé Quartet, an ensemble headed by Arnold Rosé, the concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustav Mahler’s brother-in-law.

One eye-witness reported as follows: “Many found the work impossible, and left the hall during the performance, one rather humorously through the emergency exit. As the hissing continued afterward, Gustav Mahler, who was present, approached one of the unsatisfied and said: ‘You should not hiss!’—to which the unhappy audience member responded: ‘Don’t worry—I hiss your symphonies, too!’"

In 1936, the Hollywood composer Alfred Newman was taking composition lessons from Schoenberg, who was then living in Los Angeles. Newman arranged to have all four of Schoenberg’s Quartets recorded by the visiting Kolisch Quartet at the United Artists Studios in Hollywood. To do this, Newman had to first obtain permission from none other than film mogul Samuel Goldwyn himself.

“And so,” recalled Newman years later, “a hack movie-musician, a movie producer, and a movie studio made possible the recording of four important modern compositions. We had a chance to do something for music that the art for art’s sake boys couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and we took it. Once in a while, you see, we can be unfaithful to the great god Profit.”

On today’s date in 1945, the Armenian-American composer Alan Hovhaness served as both the soloist and conductor in the first performance of his piano concerto entitled “Lousadzak.” The exotic title, Hovhaness explained, was a “made-up” Armenian word meaning “dawn of light.”

“I wrote it to play and conduct myself with an amateur orchestra," recalled Hovhaness. "When we played it in Boston my hands were so busy all the way that I couldn’t give many cues.”

When Hovhaness repeated his new concerto at Town Hall in New York, one newspaper sent the composer Lou Harrison as its music critic to cover the event.

“The intermission that followed was the closest I’ve ever been to one of those renowned artistic riots,” recalled Harrison. “In the lobby, the Chromaticists and the Americanists were carrying on at high decibels. What had touched it off was the fact that here was a man from Boston whose obviously beautiful music had nothing to do with either camp and was its own very wonderful thing. My guest John Cage and I were very excited, and I dashed off to the lamented Herald Tribune and wrote a rave review while John went back to the Green Room to meet Alan.”

For his part, Hovhaness said: “I believe in melody, and to create a melody one needs to go within oneself. I was very touched when John Cage said my music was like inward singing. I must admit there is always music in my head.”

Chinese New Year, or “Spring Festival,” is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays and its observance traditionally begins on the first day of the first month in the Chinese lunar calendar.

“Spring Festival” is also the title Chinese composer Chen Yi gave to a work for wind band that she wrote in 1999 on commission from American Composers Forum and published as part of their “BandQuest” new music series for young performers.

The principle melody in Chen’s “Spring Festival” draws on a southern Chinese folk tune called “Lion Playing Ball,” but its formal structure is mathematical in nature and based on the ancient Greek idea of the “Golden Ratio” or “Golden Section,” a concept often symbolized by the Greek letter phi and traditionally thought to represent an aesthetically pleasing proportion.

Speaking of schooling, composer Chen Yi received her Master’s degree in music composition from the Central Conservatory in Beijing, and her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Columbia University in New York City. She now teaches at the Conservatory of the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

It was in Kansas City that Chen developed her “Spring Festival” piece during workshops with the young musicians of the Smith-Hale Junior High School Band, and the finished score received its premiere performance on today’s date in the year 2000 by that band under the direction of Jan Davis.

Today marks the birthday anniversary of the Austrian-born American violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler, who was born in Vienna on February 2, 1875.

When he was only 4, Kreisler’s musical talent was already apparently, and at 7 he entered the Vienna Conservatory where his theory teacher was Anton Bruckner. As a violinist, young master Kreisler (as he was known at the time), made his Viennese debut at age 9, and his American debut when he was 13. Elgar composed his Violin Concerto for Kreisler, who premiered the work in London in 1910. By that time, Kreisler was famous worldwide.

Fritz Kreisler made hundreds of recordings, mainly of shorter works and most famously of his own compositions for his instrument. These included original works and pieces written in the style of earlier composers. Kreisler’s interest in earlier music was deep and genuine, as was his passion for old books and ancient languages. The rise of Nazism in Germany and Austria forced Kreisler to America, where he became a naturalized citizen.

In 1941, while crossing a New York street, he was hit by a truck and nearly killed. When he awoke from a month-long coma, the multi-linguist Kreisler could at first only communicate to his doctors and family in Latin and ancient Greek. The 66-year-old eventually recovered, however, and continued to perform in public until 1950. He died in New York City, a few days short of his 87th birthday, on January 29, 1962.

On today’s date in 2002, a new work by the American composer Michael Torke had its premiere performance at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall, at a concert by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.

Torke was the orchestra’s composer-in-residence at the time, and wrote a 20-minute tone poem entitled “An American Abroad” to fulfill his second commission for the Scots.

Here’s how Torke himself describes the piece: “Unfolding melodies and themes express the natural naïveté an American might feel traveling abroad. Wonderment and curiosity kindles the traveler’s energy, yet there remains an unintended lack of sophistication. Being an outsider, how can a traveler truly understand the depths and subtleties of a new culture?”

Or, as a Scottish newspaper critic put it, “the gee-whiz factor Scots know only too well when we spot a guddle of Americans gawping at Edinburgh Castle.”

Actually, the piece could just as well be titled “A European in America,” as Torke explained: “I currently live in New York City, and when visitors from the ‘outside’ are in town, I am inspired by their simple energy and appreciation of what my hometown has to offer, which often opens my eyes to new ways of seeing New York.”

But, to let the Scottish critic we quoted earlier have the last word: “The music is immediately appealing; Copland, Bernstein and Gershwin are apparent influences in a piece of music that is almost dangerously attractive. Contemporary music is not supposed to be so easy.”

In the rarified world of contemporary music, composers are expected to “challenge” performers—to push the envelope of instrumental technique and difficulty. But in the fall of 1999, it was the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass himself who was challenged: He was commissioned by the American Composers Forum to write a piece for their BandQuest series, intended to provide high-quality new music for young performers.

Specifically, Colgrass was asked to write for the Winona Drive Senior School Band of Toronto. Far from professional musicians, some of these were kids just learning to play their instruments. Their conductor—no jet-setting superstar—was the hard-working Louis Papachristos, who, in addition to leading 3 bands, also coached boy’s and girls’ basketball.

Colgrass rose to the challenge, and the resulting work, “Old Churches,” was premiered on this date in 2000. Colgrass employed elements of Gregorian chant to evoke an ancient monastery, and easy graphic notation to introduce students to improvisation and involve them in the compositional process itself.

“Keeping the music simple was a challenge,” says Colgrass, “but it struck me that Mozart and Beethoven wrote music for amateurs without ‘dumbing down’… am I a good enough composer to write a simple theme that can be genuinely exciting or moving, the way they did?”

As a result of the experience, Colgrass suggests that writing for middle school bands should be a required project in university composition programs—as training for composers. “Writing for eighth grade band is like walking in four-pound shoes, says Colgrass, “if you can move gracefully with that weight on your feet, you'll fly when you put on the four-ounce runners.”

Today a salute to a remarkable American composer and performer—the cornet virtuoso Herbert Lincoln Clarke.

Clarke was born in Wolburn, Massachusetts, on September 12, 1867, into a peripatetic musical family. He began to play his brother’s cornet and was soon earning fifty cents a night playing in a restaurant band. At age 19, Clarke won first prize at a cornet competition in Indiana, and, in 1893, after many years on the road, Clarke got the call from John Philip Sousa to join his illustrious organization as its star soloist, a position he held for over 20 years.

From 1900 on, Clarke began to compose and make recordings of his own music. In 1904, while on a return voyage from England with the Sousa Band, Clarke completed one of his best-known pieces, a work originally titled “Valse Brilliante”—but while waiting to dock in New York, at Sousa’s suggestion Clarke changed the title to “Sounds from the Hudson.”

In 1923, Clarke accepted an offer to direct the Municipal Band of Long Beach, California, performing a new work at his debut concert there, entitled—appropriately enough—“Long Beach is Calling!”

Herbert L. Clarke died in California on today’s date in 1945. But the much-traveled composer and performer was buried on the opposite coast—in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.—near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.

In New York City on today’s date in 2008, The Juilliard School’s annual FOCUS! Festival showcased music from the opposite coast, including the world premiere performance of a new string quartet by Californian composer John Adams.

Some 14 years earlier, Adams had written a work for string quartet and pre-recorded tape that was premiered by the Kronos Quartet at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido. That earlier string quartet Adams titled “John’s Book of Alleged Dances,” because, as he said at the time, “the steps for the dances had yet to be invented.”

His new work for 2008 had a more serious title: simply, “String Quartet,” and was premiered by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Adams had heard the Saint Lawrence Quartet perform his “Book of Alleged Dances,” and was so impressed he wanted to write a new work for the ensemble.

Considering the great string quartets written by composers of the past ranging from Haydn to Ravel, throwing your hat in the string quartet ring can be intimidating, however.

“String quartet writing is one of the most difficult challenges a composer can take on,” confessed Adams. “Unless one is an accomplished string player and writes in that medium all the time—and I don’t know many these days who do—the demands of handling this extremely volatile and transparent instrumental medium can easily be humbling, if not downright humiliating.

Many good things come in threes—at least William Bolcom seems to think so.

On today’s date in 1971, in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, New York, American composer and pianist William Bolcom put the finishes touches to this music, the second of three piano pieces he collectively titled “Ghost Rags.”

“Ghost Rag” No. 2 was titled “Poltergeist” and was dedicated to Tracey Sterne, who at that time was a dynamic record producer at Nonesuch Records. In her youth Sterne pursued a career as a concert pianist, but in the 1960s and 70s was responsible for assembling the Nonesuch label’s astonishingly diverse catalog of old, new and world music.

“Ghost Rag” No. 3, titled “Dream Shadows,” was described by Bolcom as a “white rag” which evoked “the era of white telephones and white pianos” and “was in the white key of C Major.” Bolcom dedicated this rag to his fellow composer William Albright.

And Bolcom’s “Ghost Rag” No. 1, which has proved to be the most popular of the three, was titled “Graceful Ghost.” Bolcom dedicated this music to the memory of his father, whose benign spirit Bolcom said he often felt hovering around his piano while he played at night.