Composers Datebook

On today's date in 1976, an opera premiered at the Théatre Municipale in Avignon, France, that had very little in common with the operas of Mozart or Puccini. For starters, it ran for five hours with no breaks between acts. The audience was invited to wander in and out as it pleased. The libretto consisted of numbers, solfege syllables and some cryptic poems written by a neurologically impaired pupil from a New York School for Disturbed Children. Even the title of this new opera was unusual, suggesting something at once serious and surreal.

The opera in question was called "Einstein on the Beach." As part of the action on stage, a violinist dressed up like Albert Einstein wandered in and out of its surreal scenes, a reference to the fact that, in real life, the famous physicist was also a talented amateur violinist.

"Einstein on the Beach" was collaboration between two Americans: composer Philip Glass and set designer Robert Wilson. It made the rounds in Europe, attracted a great deal of attention, and came to America in November of 1976 for two sold-out performances in New York staged at the Metropolitan Opera by Glass and his ensemble.

"Einstein on the Beach" has been something of a cult classic ever since. Its music was even referenced as a kind of "in joke" during a popular TV commercial in which Einstein debates the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi. For the record, in the TV commercial, Albert chooses Pepsi.

The composer of this familiar Olympic theme was born on today's date in 1904 in Lyon, France. He was christened "Noel" Arnaud, but is better known as "Leo" Arnaud, the name he adopted after emigrating to the U.S.A. in the late 1930's.

Arnaud studied music in his native France with two of its leading composers, Vincent d'Indy and Maurice Ravel, before coming to America. Arnaud settled in Hollywood, where he worked as an orchestrator and arranger for numerous films, churning out scores for everything from "Blondie Goes Latin" to "The Ice Follies of 1939." The high point of Arnaud's cinematic career was an Oscar nomination for his work as an arranger for the 1964 musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown."

Some years earlier, Hollywood Bowl conductor Felix Slatkin commissioned Arnaud to write some music for a LP sonic spectacular designed to show off the new "stereophonic" recording process.

The album was titled "Charge!" and featured military style fanfares and suites, and included a cut entitled "Bugler's Dream." The original 1958 album notes described this music as: "derived from various bugle calls—suggesting perhaps a slumbering bugler's thoughts as they swirl in a fantasy of classical fanfares and radically modern cadenzas."

In 1968, when ABC television was looking for a musical theme for its Olympic coverage, they chose "Bugler's Holiday." By 1988, when the NBC network secured TV rights for the Olympics, Arnaud's theme had become the instantly recognizable signature theme for the games. Its composer, Leo Arnaud, died in Los Angeles in 1991.

On today's date in 1757, the Italian composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti died in Madrid. He was 71 years old, and for the last 38 years of his life had been employed at the court of Princess Maria Barbara, first in her native Portugal, and then, when the Princess married the heir to the Spanish throne, in Madrid. Although Domenico could very well have stayed in Italy and become a famous opera composer like his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico spent the better part of his life composing over 600 virtuoso sonatas for Maria Barbara. Only a handful of these were published during his lifetime. In the 19th century, Liszt and Brahms took the trouble to hunt down additional Scarlatti sonatas in manuscript, but the bulk of them remained unpublished and unknown until a complete edition was published in the 20th century. While not coming anywhere close to matching Scarlatti's output, one 20th century American composer, the Philadelphia-born Vincent Persichetti, composed ten harpsichord sonatas of his own. Like Scarlartti, Persichetti was a virtuoso keyboard performer, and wrote showcase pieces for the piano and organ in addition to the harpsichord. The growing number of modern-day harpsichordists has meant that in addition to the wealth of old music for the instrument, an increasing number of contemporary composers have followed Persichetti's example, and are writing new works for this old instrument.

On today's date in 1847, Giuseppe Verdi conducted the premiere performance of his newest opera, "I Masnadieri" or "The Robbers," at Her Majesty's Theater in London. And speaking of her Majesty, Queen Victoria was in the audience, as were other state dignitaries, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis Napoleon of France. It was the first time in over twenty years that a world-famous composer had composed an opera specifically for London. As one of Verdi's young assistants put it, "Neither Rossini, Bellini, or Donizetti had ever pitched their tents on the banks of the Thames." As an added attraction, the 27-year old Swedish nightingale, soprano Jenny Lind, topped an all-star line-up of singers. It was Jenny Lind's London debut and the first time ever that an operatic role had been specially-written for her The premiere was a great success for all concerned, with Verdi and the singers called to the stage again and again to cheers from the audience. The critics, for their part, were less than kind. "We take this to be the worst opera that has been given in your time at Her Majesty's Theater," wrote one. "There does not exist an Italian composer more incapable of producing what is commonly called melody." "I Masnadieri" fared a little better back in Italy, but gradually faded from the active repertory until the revival of interest in all of Verdi's opera in the 20th century.

On today's date in 1938, the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo presented in London a brand-new work based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi entitled "Nobilissima Visione." The choreography was by Leonide Massine, and the music by Paul Hindemith. The idea of a ballet based on St. Francis may have been suggested by Hindemith's wife, who had recently converted to Catholicism. The Hindemiths had visited the Church of Santa Croce in Florence, and had been deeply impressed by its Renaissance frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. Francis. In the 1930's, Hindemith was increasingly fascinated by music of the past, and originally intended to incorporate melodies from the French medieval composer Machaut into his St. Francis ballet, but ended up writing original themes in an archaic style. Whether presented as a staged ballet or in the composer's own concert suite arrangement, "Nobilissima Visione" proved to be one of Hindemith's most popular works, and a work that he often conducted himself. "My ballet is not an eye-catcher in the old style," wrote Hindemith in 1938, "It is not exactly full of sparkling wit, but all the same it makes a fine impression, with all the trappings of success that a composer greedy for recognition could wish. Even the earthshaking impresario Sol Hurok was so impressed that he pressed me to his smart businessman's heart and is insisting on my conducting the piece myself in New York and surrounding villages."

Today a tip of the hat to a much-beleaguered and frequently unacknowledged species: the piano teacher. All the great pianists had one—as did the not so great... Do you, for example, remember the name of YOUR first piano teacher?

In the case of Duke Ellington, it was not a name one could easily forget. She was a certain Mrs. Clinkscales, and Ellington always gave her credit for her persistence.

"Because of my enthusiasm for playing ball and running and racing through the street, I missed more lessons than I took," wrote Ellington. "When she had her piano recital with all her pupils, I was the only one who could not play his part. So Mrs. Clinkscales had to play the treble, and I just played the umpy-dump bottom! The umpy-dump bottom, was, of course, the foundation and understanding of that part of piano-playing I later learned to like."

The avant-garde American composer Morton Feldman immortalized the name of HIS piano teacher in an elegiac chamber piece titled "Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety."

This music was premiered in France on today's date in 1970. Steeped in the great Russian tradition, Madame Maurina Press said she had taught the children of the Czar and knew the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. She started teaching Morton Feldman when he was twelve, and his tribute to her is scored for 12 instruments—with the piano conspicuous by its absence!

During WWII, Germans encircled the city of Leningrad, creating a siege that would last 900 days and cause immense suffering for that city's residents. One resident, composer Dimtri Shostakovich, appeared on the cover of a July 1942 issue of TIME magazine, grim-faced and wearing the helmet of a Leningrad fireman.

The publicity was related to the American premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, subtitled "Leningrad," as a live NBC Symphony radio broadcast on today's date in 1942. The performance was dedicated to the Russian War Relief, and the NBC announcer explained how 3000 pages of the score and parts for the recently-completed symphony had been microfilmed and flown from the Soviet Union to the West via Teheran.

What the NBC announcer didn't say was that two famous conductors, Leopold Stokowski and Arturo Toscanini, had been hotly contesting who would conduct the American premiere. Toscanini had resigned from the NBC Symphony for the 1941/42 season, and Stokowski was his replacement. It was Stokowski who had lobbied for the "Leningrad" Symphony premiere, but the older conductor pulled rank, and returned to conduct the broadcast. "Don't you think, my dear Stokowski," wrote Toscanini, "it would be interesting for everybody, and yourself, too, to hear the old Italian conductor—one of the first artists who strenuously fought against Fascism—to play this work of a young Russian anti-Nazi composer?"

Friends of the composer suggest Shostakovich had more than just the Nazis on his mind, and quote him as saying: "Fascism is not simply National Socialism, and this is music about terror, slavery, and oppression of the spirit."

Today we pay tribute to a 19th century superwoman—Pauline Viardot-Garcia, born on today's date in Paris in 1821. Her father was Manuel Garcia, the famous Spanish tenor for whom Rossini had written the role of Count Almaviva in "The Barber of Seville." Her older sister was the legendary 19th century operatic diva Maria Malibran, a famous interpreter of operas by Bellini and Donizetti.

Little Pauline wanted to be a piano virtuoso, and took lessons from Liszt, but at age 15 her mother decided she, too, should become a singer. Chopin adored her voice, and together they arranged some of his mazurkas as songs, which they performed together in concert. Meyerbeer and Gounod wrote operatic roles with her remarkable lower range in mind.

In 1860, with the composer himself at the piano, croaking out the tenor part of Tristan, Pauline sang the role of Isolde at the first private reading of music from Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde," and it was she who gave the premiere performance of Brahms' "Alto Rhapsody" in 1870.

She married Louis Viardot, the director of the Theatre Italien in Paris, and at their home one was just as likely to meet Charles Dickens or Henry James as Berlioz or Tchaikovsky. Although hardly a conventional beauty, Pauline attracted a bevy of smitten male admirers, most famously the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, with whom she may or may not have had an affair. She was also a composer, her works including a chamber opera titled "Cinderella."

She died in Paris in 1910 at the age of 88.

On today's date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival that included works by Mozart and others, including two living composers of that day, a 44-year old fellow named Brahms and a 64-year old named Wagner. The Philharmonic would return to Salzburg six more times for mini-festivals through 1910, some led by composer-conductors like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. A summertime visit was scheduled in 1914, too, but the outbreak of World War I cancelled that. In 1925, an annual "Salzburg Festival" was established, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as the main musical participants. The Second World War disrupted the Festival in the 1940s, but soon after it reestablished itself among the most prestigious of international musical happenings. The biggest names all performed at the Salzburg Festival: Herbert von Karajan, Luciano Pavarotti, and James Levine, to cite just a few. Traditionally, a familiar brass fanfare opens each Festival broadcast, but probably few music lovers know the name of its composer. It was written by Joseph Messner, who wrote over 700 works in nearly all genres. He was born in 1893 in the Austrian Tyrol and died in 1969 in a village near Salzburg, where he had served as church organist, conductor and composer for decades, leading many Festival concerts featuring sacred music by Mozart and others.

Today we note the birthday of a remarkable composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist: Eugéne Ysaÿe, who was born in Liége, Belgium, on today's date in 1858. After studies with two of the most famous violin composers of his day, Henyrk Wieniawski of Poland and his Belgian compatriot, Henri Vieuxtemps, Ysaÿe soon was touring Europe and Russia as a star performer himself.

In 1886, when the 28-year old Ysaÿe married, the great Belgian composer Cesar Franck presented the young couple with his Violin Sonata in A Major as a wedding present. That same year, Ysaÿe founded a famous string quartet, and in 1893 it was the Ysaÿe Quartet that gave the premiere performance of Claude Debussy's String Quartet, a work its composer dedicated to the ensemble in admiration.

In 1918, Ysaye made his American debut as a conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony, and made such a great impression there that he remained as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony from 1918 to 1922.

As a composer, Ysaye wrote eight concertos and a set of six solo sonatas for the violin. In 1928, at the age of 70, the patriotic Belgian began work on an opera titled "Peter the Miner" to a libretto in his native Walloon language, and was at work on a second opera when he died at the age of 72, in 1931. In 1937, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium inaugurated the annual Eugene Ysaÿe International Prize for promising young violinists.