Composers Datebook

Today we have a letter to read, written by Mozart in the middle of May in the year 1778. Mozart was in Paris, 22 years old, and had this to say to his father back in Salzburg: "I think I told you in my last letter," wrote Mozart, "that the Duc de Guines plays the flute extremely well, and that his daughter is my pupil in composition. She also plays the harp magnifique. She has a great deal of talent, even genius, and in particular a marvelous memory so that she can play all her pieces, actually about 200, by heart. It is, however, extremely doubtful as to whether she has any talent for composition, especially as regards invention or ideas." "Her father's intention," Mozart continued, "is not to make a great composer of her. 'She is not,' said the Duc De Guines, 'to compose operas, arias, concertos, symphonies, but only grand sonatas for her instrument and mine." The Duc de Guines was the former French ambassador to London, and believed by Mozart's father to be in the inner circle of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, and hence a contact well worth cultivating. De Guines commissioned Mozart to write a double concerto for himself on flute and daughter on harp. Mozart complied with this courtly Concerto in C Major. Four months after delivering the music, Mozart had to report to his father that he still hadn't seen any payment for his efforts!

Today we celebrate two premieres and one three-letter prefix: "neo, n-e-o, meaning "new". On today's date in 1920, Igor Stravinsky's ballet "Pulcinella" was produced for the first time in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Stravinsky incorporated into the score some instrumental pieces attributed to the 18th century Italian composer Perlogesi. For the next 30 years, Stravinsky turned again and again to 18th-century forms and styles for inspiration, and created a style that was soon dubbed "neo-classical." Fifty-two years after Pucinella, a "neo-Romantic" movement of sorts was born when, on May 15, 1972, at New York's Alice Tully Hall, the Concord Quartet gave the premiere performance of the String Quartet No. 3 written by American composer George Rochberg. Rochberg's new quartet took the critics by surprise. While his previous two quartets had been written in an aggressively atonal style, his new quartet contained melodies that might have come from a late Beethoven string quartet, or a lost work by Mahler. In a kind of manifesto, Rochberg explained his use of Romantic styles: "We bear the past in us. We do not, cannot, begin all over again in each generation. I came to realize that the music of the old masters was a living presence; that its spiritual values had not been displaced or destroyed by the new music. The shock wave of the enlargement of vision was to alter my whole attitude towards what was musically possible today."

"Alligator Alley" is the nickname for the east-west stretch of Interstate 75 between Naples and Fort Lauderdale that crosses through Florida Everglades National Park. This park is home to many endangered species, one of them being the American alligator, a critter that occasionally I-75 drivers might see perched on the roadside observing the traffic flow—or hunting for road kill.

"Alligator Alley" is also the title of a wind band score by the American composer Michael Daugherty, a work commissioned in 2003 by the American Composers Forum for their BandQuest series of new pieces written by leading American composers for middle and high school performers.

In the case of "Alligator Alley," Daugherty had a particular middle-schooler in mind, namely his own daughter who played bassoon in a middle school band.

Daugherty's "Alligator Alley" employs two main themes: the first, a slithery "alligator theme," is played at the beginning by bassoons; the second, a "hunter's theme," is performed by the brass, and the percussive sound of an alligator snapping its jaws is evoked by two pieces of wood being struck together.

Since its premiere performance on May 14, 2003, by band director Gene Bartley and the kids at Slausen Middle School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Michael Daugherty's "Alligator Alley" has slithered its way into the band rooms and onto the music stands of young musicians all across the country.

On today's date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival chorus and orchestra in the first American performance of J.S. Bach's "Magnificat."

Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score ten years later in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also a reworking, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus performing his music.

Bach's "Magnificat" served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers of the day referred to "Ninth Symphomania" breaking out in their city.

The newspapers were less impressed with Bach's "Magnificat." The Cincinnati Commercial review opined: "The work is difficult in the extreme… most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the 'Magnificat' the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken… possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies."

Well, no one who actually heard that 1875 performance is still alive to ask whether it was really as terrible as all that, and in any case, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach's "inconsequential intricacies" since then.

On this date in 1926, a 19-year old composer and sometime silent film piano accompanist named Dimitri Shostakovich saw his First Symphony performed in style by the Leningrad Philharmonic.

It must have been a heady experience for the young composer, who for the past two years had earned a living of sorts accompanying silent films at various Leningrad cinemas.

One evening, while accompanying a film titled "Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden," the young composer was so carried away by his own improvisations of bird song that he assumed the catcalls and noisy expressions of disapproval from the audience were directed at the film, not at him. Only afterwards was he told the audience had assumed he must have been drunk. In later years, Shostakovich would tell this story with some pride—at least they had noticed his music!

The Leningrad Philharmonic's performance of his Symphony, the first of his orchestral works to be performed in public, was a triumph and established Shostakovich as a major new talent. Shostakovich's teacher, Maximillian Steinberg wrote that at rehearsals, Shostakovich was: "in such indescribable raptures from hearing his own music that I found it hard to restrain him from an unbridled display of his feelings."

May 12th was a date Shostakovich would commemorate till the end of his life—if for no other reason than he would never again have to improvise piano accompaniment to cinematic masterworks like "Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden."

On today date in 1876—America's Centennial Year—the popular French composer Jacques Offenbach came to New York and Philadelphia for a series of concerts. The newspaper announcement read as follows: "Mr. Offenbach, the illustrious maestro, assisted by a grand orchestra of one hundred skilled musicians, will inaugurate a series of twenty concerts at Gilmore's Gardens."

Offenbach's promoter jacked up ticket prices to double their usual amount—general admission was $1 and private boxes $5. Even so, on May 11th, 5000 people crowded into the hall to see and hear Offenbach, billed as "the most fascinating composer of the age, the Operatic Puck."

Offenbach was given a standing ovation when he mounted to podium, but half the audience left, disappointed, before the concert ended. Apparently pre-concert hype had led New York audiences to expect singing and dancing at the concert, and maybe even a rendition of that naughty French dance, the Can-Can. What they got was an orchestral concert—admittedly well-played and conducted—but no sign of any leggy dancing girls.

Offenbach was crushed, and offered to tear up his contract, but instead, the promoter suggested they just pep up the program with more variety, and Offenbach even wrote a special waltz for the remaining concerts, titled "The American Eagle Waltz." The waltz—and the remaining New York concerts—proved a great success.

What do YOU think of when you think of Sweden? In the 1960s, sexy blond movie stars might have come to mind, or, for the art house crowd, the dark, existentialist films of Ingmar Berman. Disco fanciers might immediately think of the pop group ABBA, but for most of the 20th century—symphonically speaking—one piece of music defined all things Swedish.

And it was on today's date in 1904, that this "Midsummer Vigil," the Op. 19, by the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén was first performed, in Stockholm, with the composer conducting.

It was the first of three orchestral rhapsodies, all based on actual Swedish folk tunes. It rapidly became Alfvén's most famous work, and soon served as a kind of musical shorthand for all things Scandinavian. In Sweden itself, Alfvén's score was adapted as a tremendously popular ballet.

Alfvén lived from 1872-1960, and had a long and productive career as a composer and conductor. He wrote five symphonies and dozens of choral works and folksong arrangements. He held several major music posts in Sweden, and even achieved success as an author and watercolorist, writing and painting vivid pictures of the landscapes he loved best—the islands and inlets of the Swedish coastline. "In the depths of my soul I am an archipelago dweller," he once confided to a friend. Unfortunately, most of Alfvén's music remains far too little known outside Sweden—with the one exception of his big hit, the "Midsummer Vigil."

On today's date in 1911, the Independent Music Society of Paris sponsored "An Anonymous Concert" at which the audience was invited to guess the composers of a number of pieces presented without attribution. In the audience was the French composer Maurice Ravel, who had agreed to let a suite of his new piano pieces be performed as part of the experiment. Some professional music critics were also in attendance, although they prudently refused to reveal their guesses, fearing their professional reputations might suffer as a result. "The title Valses nobles et sentimentales is a sufficient indication that my intention was to compose a chain of waltzes following the example of Schubert," Ravel wrote. "They were performed for the first time, amidst protests and booing, at this concert." Even more droll, recalled Ravel, were the reactions of some his most ardent admirers, who attended the concert with him, but didn't know any of his own music would be played. They jeered at his waltzes, calling them "ridiculous pages," and ventured the guess the composer must be either Erik Satie or Zoltan Kodaly. Ravel accepted their comments in stoic silence. The majority of the audience proved more astute than Ravel's friends, however. "The paternity of the Waltzes was correctly attributed to me," recalled Ravel, "but by a weak majority." The following year, Ravel prepared this orchestral version of his waltz suite for use as a ballet score.

On today's date in 1938, a musical soirée was held at Dumbarton Oaks, a magnificent house on the crest of a wooded valley near Washington, D.C. This was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss.

Mr. Bliss had retired from a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service, which included a posting in St. Petersburg in 1907, around the same time a young Russian composer name Igor Stravinsky was getting some of his first public performances there.

Mr. and Mrs. Bliss commissioned Stravinsky to write a Concerto for Chamber Orchestra to be premiered at their May 8, 1938 soirée in celebration of their 30th wedding anniversary, a work now known as the "Dumbarton Oaks Concerto."

"A little concerto in the style of the Brandenburg Concertos," was how Stravinsky put it, adding, "I played Bach very regularly during the composition of the concerto, and I was greatly attracted to the Brandenburg Concertos. Whether or not the first theme of my first movement is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Brandenburg set, however, I do not know. What I can say is that Bach would most certainly have been delighted to loan it to me; to borrow in this way was exactly the sort of thing he liked to do."

On today’s date in 1937, the NBC radio network was carrying a live broadcast from the Cincinnati May Festival of a new oratorio entitled “The Ordering of Moses,” inspired by the Biblical Book of Exodus.

British conductor Eugene Goosens led soloists and a chorus of 350 in what was the world premiere performance of this music by a 54-year old Canadian-born American composer, organist, pianist, and music professor named Robert Nathaniel Dett.

Curiously, about 40 minutes into the live broadcast, which should have lasted a full hour, the NBC announcer broke in, stating, (quote), “We are sorry indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but due to previous commitments, we are unable to remain for the closing moments of this excellent performance."

A live recording of the broadcast, preserved on scratchy acetate discs, documents that moment for posterity. No one knows for certain why the broadcast was cut short, but some have speculated that angry calls to NBC’s Southern affiliate stations might have been the reason, because Dett was African-American.

77 years later, in 2014, the American conductor James Conlon led the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus in another live, broadcast performance of Dett’s oratorio, this time complete and uninterrupted from the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York City.

That live performance was also recorded, this time digitally, and made available for posterity on compact disc.

Reviewing the 2014 performance, New Yorker critic Alex Ross wrote:

‘The uncanny radiance of this music is tied to a fundamental ambiguity: does the Exodus story serve as a metaphor for the black experience, or does that experience serve to amplify the religious text? When we hear the rattling of chains in the percussion, whose enslavement is being invoked? … The sadness of Dett’s career is that he began composing in earnest so late; he died, at the age of sixty, just six years after the première of 'The Ordering of Moses.'”