Today in 1980, “Satyagraha,” a new opera by the American composer Philip Glass, had its premiere in Rotterdam by the Netherlands Opera.

Four years earlier, in 1976, Glass’s first big opera, “Einstein on the Beach,” had scored a big hit not only in Avignon, France, where it had premiered, but also at a special, non-subscription performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

But “Einstein” had been written for Glass’s own electronic keyboard ensemble, while the new opera “Satyagraha” was written for the more traditional opera pit orchestra of strings, winds and brass… with an electric organ and synthesizer thrown in for good measure. THAT was, in some ways, a new language for Glass to learn.

And speaking of new languages, for opera singers used to singing in Italian, French or German, the libretto for “Satyagraha,” crafted by Glass and Constance DeJong, was to be sung in ancient Sanskrit, based on texts from Bhagavad-Gita.

"Satyagraha" is a Sanskrit word meaning "truth force." While the text is ancient, the story of the opera is set in modern times, and deals with Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa and his development of non-violent protest as a political tool.

“Satyagraha” is the second of three operas that form a kind of trilogy about men who changed the world: Einstein, Gandhi, and the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten.

On today’s date in 1996, Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the first performance of this music, a five-minute toccata for orchestra entitled “Lost and Found.” Its composer was Steve Mackey, an American whose music Tilson Thomas has championed and recorded. Mackey writes:

“On more than one occasion Michael has used the word ‘wacky’ to describe my music. Composers usually blanch at such attributions—nobody wants to be captured in a single word—but I can live with ‘wacky.’ It is not a common adjective, does not end with ‘ism,’ and clearly the rhyme with my last name personalizes it. My music tends to explore fringe modes of consciousness rather than brand-name emotion or logical thought.”

Mackey also avoids conventional titles for his works. His Concerto for Electric Guitar and Orchestra is entitled “Tuck and Roll,” and among his other orchestral works can be found “Banana/Dump Truck” and “Eating Greens.” Mackey says:

“Greater thinkers than I have stumbled at the task of explaining humor, but my best guess, as it pertains to my music, is that it lies in the relationship of the music to the physical world. I think a lot about momentum, inertia, and even gravity. Allowing the music to get stuck and tip over, lurch headlong, tumble with limbs akimbo as well as to move fluidly gives it a ‘road runner’ cartoon kind of physicality, a fantasy, but not completely unhinged from the physical world.”

Today in 1806, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to his publishers Breitkopf and Härtel: “You may have at once 3 new string quartets.” Beethoven had written this music on commission from the wealthy Russian ambassador to Vienna, Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky.

Beethoven was stretching the truth a bit when he told his publisher they could have the quartets “at once,” since as per the Count’s commission, Razumovsky had exclusive rights to the music for a full year, and the ink was still wet. But then, Beethoven had also promised the Count that he’d weave authentic Russian melodies in all three quartets, but ended up doing so in just two of them.

Today, these “Razumovsky” Quartets rank among Beethoven’s most popular chamber works, but initially they were not well received. When shown the music prior to publication, a professional Viennese quartet assumed Beethoven was playing a practical joke on them. “Crazy music” and a “patchwork by a madman” were some of the comments of others who purchased the music. “Pity to waste the money,” was a common reaction.

The second movement of the first Quartet, with its cello solo on just one note, provoked particular disdain from performers and audiences alike.

Muzio Clementi, who had seen these quartets in manuscript, remarked to Beethoven, “Surely you don’t consider these works to be music!” to which Beethoven replied, “Oh, they are not for you, but for a later age.”

Imagine a crisp, blue Northern sky, a Canadian Mountie in a bright red tunic, and, what else—an elaborately coiffed operatic soprano singing in the middle of the woods. Yes, it was on today’s date in 1924, at the Imperial Theater in New York, that “The Indian Love Call” made its debut as part of a musical entitled “Rose-Marie,” with tunes provided by an American composer of Bohemian birth named Rudolf Friml.

This one-time Dvorak pupil was born in Prague in 1879. He scored such a hit when he debuted his own Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall in 1904 that he decided to make America his home. His early years as an American composer were pretty rough, but by 1912, “The Firefly,” his first musical on Broadway, was a great success.

Friml followed this with a string of increasingly popular New York shows. “Rose-Marie” from 1924 and “The Vagabond King” from 1925 proved to be the most lucrative, but by the mid-1930s Friml’s old-world musical style was judged too old-fashioned for the Broadway of George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

Ironically, it was during the 30s that Nelson Eddy and Jeannette MacDonald films based on Friml musicals broke box office records. These campy films are now treasured precisely for their sweet, if rather affected, “period” flavor. Before retirement, Friml worked for the film industry and died in Hollywood in 1972, at the age of 92.

At a time when immigrants of many lands were moving into the American melting pot, composers in Europe were celebrating their own diversity, tapping into their native folk music for inspiration and musical themes as their own nation-states struggled for independence. This trend has continued in our own time with composers in the Pacific Rim and Middle East.

Take this music, written for the modern flute and cello, two traditional European instruments, and influenced by the folk-music of Persia. The performers are asked at times to play AND sing simultaneously into their instruments. For the flute, this results in overtones and a timbre similar to the Persian bamboo flute… and the cellist, by sharply plucking some strings, or striking them with the wooden part of his bow, also imitates Persian percussion instruments.

The composer of this Folk Song Suite, based on real and imagines Persian themes, is Reza Vali. He was born in Ghazvin, Iran, on today’s date in 1952, and began his musical studies at the Conservatory of Music in Teheran. In 1972, Reza Vali travelled to Austria to study at the Vienna Academy of Music. From Austria, he came to the United States, earning his doctorate in music theory and composition from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985, and subsequently joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University in that city.

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

That occasion marked the debut of Josef Strauss the composer, and occurred just a few weeks after the debut of Josef Strauss the conductor.

Josef was the younger brother of the popular waltz king, Johann Strauss, Jr., and initially embarked on a career as a talented architect, mathematician and civil engineer. In fact, Josef was determined to stay well away from the family’s musical empire. Josef had designed the waterworks for an Austrian town, devised a new table of logarithms for secondary school use, and even invented a new street cleaning machine, which was tested and approved by the Vienna City Council.

And then, one night, his brother Johann collapsed from overwork and dutifully Josef took over directing the family orchestra. Since it was assumed that all the Strauss family would come up with original music, Josef even tried his hand at composing.

As the title suggests, he honestly intended it to be a “one off”, hence its title “The first AND the last.” Well, it proved so popular that Josef Strauss followed it with another waltz, entitled “The First AFTER the Last.”

Josef Strauss must have heaved a sigh and bowed to destiny. He bid his engineering and scientific career adieu, and joined the family music concern.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the American composer David Schiff, who was born in New York City on August 30, 1945, but who now lives and works on the opposite coast in Portland, Oregon.

Schiff’s best-known work, a 1979 opera entitled “Gimpel the Fool,” is based on a story by the beloved Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer that tells the tale of Gimpel, a Jewish baker in Eastern Europe who takes everything at face value and so is lied to and cheated by everyone he meets. Rather than take revenge on everyone who has treated him so badly, Gimpel becomes a wandering holy man, convinced that when he dies, God will not lie or cheat him.

Schiff’s opera premiered in New York City at the 92nd Street Y in 1979, and shortly thereafter he arranged themes from it into an instrumental Divertimento, the first of many works written for clarinetist David Shifrin and Chamber Music Northwest in Portland. Writing for those musicians, says Schiff, his given him what he calls, “a wonderful sense of how Haydn must have felt as court composer at Ezsterhazy.”

The Divertimento from “Gimpel the Fool” draws on Jewish liturgical modes and Klezmer music, and its fourth movement references “Who Knows One?”—a traditional cumulative song sung on Passover. Like the story of Gimpel, the song is meant to be humorous, while still imparting an important lesson.

On today’s date in 1981, at a house concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, a chamber work by the American composer Stephen Paulus received its premiere. The piece was entitled “Courtship Songs,” and was commissioned to celebrate the 15th wedding anniversary of a St. Paul couple, Jack and Linda Hoeschler. The piece was scored for the four instruments the Hoeschler family played: flute, oboe, cello and piano. The commissioning bug apparently caught on, and anniversary commissions became a family tradition.

Eventually the Hoeschlers and some of their friends in the Twin Cities started up a Commissioning Club, modeled along the lines of an investment club. The idea was to pool their resources, and commission new works by American composers whose works they admired, including Paulus, Paul Schoenfield, Steve Heitzeg, and Augusta Read Thomas. Performing groups who have premiered Commissioning Club projects have included New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Washington D.C.’s 20th Century Consort, as well as the Minnesota and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras.

In 1996, 15 years after “Courtship Songs” premiered, one Commissioning Club project reached a worldwide audience of millions… Stephen Paulus’s setting of “Pilgrim Jesus,” by the English poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, was one of the carols performed at King’s College, Cambridge, as part of the “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols,” broadcast live on both the BBC’s World Service and public radio stations across America.

All in all, not a bad return on the Commissioning Club’s investment.

On today’s date in 1850, the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt conducted in Weimar the first performance of “Lohengrin,” a new opera by the German composer Richard Wagner.

Liszt was determined to make Weimar famous, musically-speaking, despite the rather provincial nature of the forces he had at his disposal. For the “Lohengrin” premiere Liszt had to go out and buy a bass-clarinet, since the Court orchestra didn’t own one, and he beefed up the number of violins from the usual 11 players to a grand total of 18.

As for the singers, they were hardly world-famous superstars. The title role of Lohengrin was sung by a local tenor named Karl Beck, who had also been a pastry cook in Weimar, and would later return to that profession as a master baker in Vienna. Even so, Liszt’s unprecedented 46 rehearsals apparently paid off: the premiere of “Lohengrin” was a big success, and helped put both Weimar and Wagner on the map.

Ironically, Wagner himself was unable to attend the premiere of his new opera. He was a wanted man on German soil, having participated in the unsuccessful Dresden uprising of 1849, and there was a warrant out for his arrest on the charge of high treason. Liszt had helped him escape to Switzerland, and while his opera was being staged in Weimar, Wagner himself was at hotel in Lucerne, listening in his imagination, he later told Liszt, as each scene unfolded.

Today we note the birthday anniversary of a remarkable British composer who spent a good deal of her life in the United States. Her name was Rebecca Clarke and she was born in Harrow, England, on today’s date in 1886 to an American father and German mother.

Rebecca studied at the Royal Conservatory in London, where she became the first female composition student of the Victorian composer Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. As a professional violist, she was one of the first women to be admitted as a member of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra, an ensemble led by Sir Henry Wood.

Many of the chamber works Clarke composed were written for and premiered by professional colleagues. The American music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, herself an amateur composer, admired Clarke’s music, and two of Clarke’s finest chamber works, a Viola Sonata from 1919 and a Piano Trio from 1921, were both written for competitions sponsored by Coolidge.

Based in London from 1924 to 1939, Clarke toured extensively, performed with a number of ensembles, and broadcast over the BBC. She found herself stranded in the U.S. by the outbreak of World War II. In 1944 she married pianist James Friskin, who had been a fellow student at the Royal College, and settled in New York.

She lived long enough to experience what she called “a little renaissance” of interest in her music around the time of her 90th birthday. She died at the age of 93 in 1979.