Composers Datebook

For the 1958-59 season of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, the orchestra's new music director, was eager to program as much new American music as he dared. As luck would have it, early in 1958, the 35-year old American composer Ned Rorem had just returned from Europe with a new symphonic score.

"I wrote most of my Third Symphony in France," recalled Rorem. "It's a big piece but not a commission—I was still writing for the love of it in those days… So I showed it to Lenny and he said 'OK, do it, but I wish you would re-orchestrate the slow movement entirely for strings.' I replied 'Sure,' but didn't, because he was always saying things like that, and then he'd forget about it."

The premiere of Ned Rorem's Third Symphony—as written—occurred at Carnegie Hall on today's date in 1959. The thrill of the premiere was tempered by some harsher realities for the composer, however.

Rorem recalls, "I remember coming late to the first rehearsal because in those days I was living off unemployment insurance. I had written music for a Tennessee Williams play that had closed, so technically I was on unemployment, and I had to go down and stand in line to pick up my check. I guess they managed without me because Lenny conducted four wonderful performances."

It's the Romantic composer, Franz Liszt, who is usually credited with the invention of the "tone poem," defined as an orchestral piece that usually has some sort of "program" or story depicted in music. In the Romantic Era these stories were often, well, romantic in nature. Enchanted huntsmen, water fairies, and tales of thwarted lovers were popular, as were depictions of mountains, rivers, and other evocative natural scenes. On today's date in 1927, the Boston Symphony premiered a modern tone-poem on a modern subject. The music was by the American composer, Frederick Converse, and the complete title was: "Flivver Ten Million: A Joyous Epic Inspired by the Familiar Legend 'The Ten Millionth Ford is Now Serving Its Owner.'" "Flivver" was a slang term appropriated by the Ford Motor Company for its inexpensive, mass-produced cars. The advertising tag-line about the "10 Millionth Flivver" must have struck Converse as poetic, in a modern American sort of way, and so fit material for a tone poem. "I set about it for my own amusement," wrote Converse. "I wondered what Mark Twain would have done with such a theme if he had been a musician. He who wishes to express American life or experience must include the saving grace of humor." As a "road map" for this musical Flivver, Converse provided descriptive titles for sections of the tone-poem, like "Dawn in Detroit," "The Din of the Builders," "The Joy Riders," and (perhaps predictably) "The Collision."

On today's date in 1789, Mozart was in Dresden, performing his new Piano Concerto at the Royal Saxon Court. Mozart was pretty good at documenting his own compositions, and we know from a catalog of his works that he finished this Concerto in late February the previous year.

Unfortunately for posterity, Mozart was less dutiful in copying out all of the solo piano part, which he no doubt just kept in his head. The surviving manuscript score contains just a shorthand version of the solo piano part, with the music for the left-hand hardly there at all.

Modern performers have to rely on their own wit and imagination to fill in the blanks, as it were… and, who knows: maybe Mozart played it differently each time himself, improvising around his own sketchy outline as the mood took him?

In any case, Mozart must have been proud of this Concerto. He played it again at the festivities surrounding the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt in October of 1790. Ever since, this Concerto has been known as the "Coronation" Concerto.

On today's date in the year 2000, at the University of Iowa, the Kalichstein-Robinson-Laredo Piano Trio gave the premiere performance of a chamber work written for them by the American composer Richard Danielpour.

Subtitled, "A Child's Reliquary," this was a musical response to every parent's worst nightmare: the death of a young child—specifically the drowning death of the 18-month old son of Danielpour's friend Carl St. Clair, the conductor of the Pacific Symphony in California.

"I know of nothing more tragic or heartbreaking…" explained Danielpour, adding, "[My Trio] was intended as a kind of 'Kindertotenlieder' without words—and everything in the piece, including references to the Brahms Cradle Song—relates to its initial inspiration."

In the Middle Ages, a reliquary was a container, often made of silver or gold, used to hold holy objects, the "relics" of a saint perhaps. In our own time, concert-goers would recognize emotional allusions to the famous lullaby—or cradle song—by Brahms in Danielpour's score, as well as echoes of Mahler's "Kindertotelieder" song cycle dealing with similar parental loss.

In 2006, Danielpour reworked "A Child's Reliquary" into a concerto for violin, cello, and full orchestra, and this new version was premiered by violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson with the Pacific Symphony led by Carl St. Clair—for the conductor, a remarkable act of loving memory and proof, perhaps, of the healing power of music.

Today in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a String Quartet by a 32-year old composer named Charles Martin Loeffler.

It was one of the young composer's earliest works, but Loeffler was already a familiar name in Boston music circles. For the past 10 years he had been the associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, and just the previous year that orchestra had premiered his first orchestral piece, called "Evenings in the Ukraine".

Loeffler told people he was born in the Alsace region of France in 1861, which would account for his French manners and the French titles he gave some of his pieces.

In fact, Loeffler was born in Berlin, but he never forgave the Prussians for the political persecution and imprisonment of his father, and left Berlin for Paris as soon as he could.

In 1881, at the age of 20, Loeffler came to the United States, where he found Americans "quick to reward genuine musical merit and to reward it far more generously than Europe." In 1887, Loeffler became an American citizen, and in short order established himself as one of the country's leading composers. His music was played by many of the major orchestras and conductors of his day.

After his death in 1935, Loeffler's music fell into neglect for many decades, but his elegant and well-crafted music is attracting renewed interest—and recordings—today.

In the 18th century, just like today, Roman tourists gravitate toward the Vatican to view the famous Sistine Chapel and its ceiling by Michelangelo. But during Holy Week in the 18th century, there was an added attraction: performances by the Sistine Chapel Choir of a hauntingly beautiful piece of music, the a cappella setting of the Latin "Miserere" by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri.

Over the decades since Allegri's death in 1652, elaborate vocal embellishments have been added to the original score. The Vatican jealously guarded these and Allegri's manuscript score as its exclusive property. Rumor had it—under threat of excommunication—that the choir was forbidden to let the score be taken out of the Chapel, copied, or even seen by any outsider.

On today's date in 1770, Wolfgang Mozart, age 14, was visiting Rome with his father. The Mozarts attended an evening service at the Vatican and heard Allegri's "Miserere." That same night—after just one hearing—young Wolfgang transcribed the piece from memory, and the Mozarts returned three days later to check Wolfgang's transcription against a repeat performance of Allegri's music. The elder Mozart thought that letting people know about this feat of memory might be "good PR" for young Wolfgang.

In any case, the Mozarts were NOT excommunicated, and Roman society WAS suitably impressed when they learned of the teenager's remarkable musical talent.

On today's date in 1959, the Duke University Band, under its conductor Paul Bryan, gave the official premiere performance of a new work they had commissioned: the Symphony No. 3 for concert band by the American composer, Vittorio Giannini, a noted composer of vocal music including songs and operas.

With the growth of concert bands in the 1950's, and success of high-profile performing ensembles like Frederick Fennell's Eastman Wind Ensemble, composers like Giannini started getting commissions to write new works for these groups to play. In all, Giannini wrote five pieces for concert band, with his Symphony No. 3 the biggest and best known of the lot.

Paul Bryan and Duke University were certainly pleased with the new work. Its resounding success encouraged other band directors to continue persuading prominent composers to create serious works for wind band–and, in one fell swoop, the Duke Band achieved national recognition for its initiative.

As for Giannini, in his later years he turned to teaching a younger generation of composers, first in New York City at Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music, then in Philadelphia at the Curtis Institute, and finally at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he served as that institution's first president. Giannini students included a number of successful composers, including David Amram, John Corigliano, Nicolas Flagello, Adolphus Hailstork, and Alfred Reed.

Today in 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, a baby girl named Florence Beatrice Smith was born. She would grow up to be the first African-American woman to win widespread recognition as a symphonic composer. All that happened under her married name: Florence Price. Price studied at the New England Conservatory and with the noted American composers Frederick Converse and George Whitefield Chadwick. She settled in Chicago, and, in 1933, the Chicago Symphony premiered her First Symphony. In 1940, THIS music, from her Symphony No. 3, premiered in Detroit. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was in Detroit that week, and was so impressed by a rehearsal of Price's symphony that she altered her schedule to stay for that evening's performance, and even wrote about the premiere in her newspaper column, "My Day." And speaking of Eleanor Roosevelt, on today's date in 1939, which fell on Easter Sunday that year, the First Lady and then Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes arranged for the famous African-American contralto, Marion Anderson, to perform a free, open-air recital at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Anderson had been denied use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. 75,000 people attended Marion Anderson's recital at the Lincoln Memorial. Marion Anderson admired Florence Price's work, and sang some of Price's songs and spiritual arrangements, including "Songs to the Dark Virgin," a setting of a text by Langston Hughes.

It's usually NEW music that gets terrible reviews in the press, but scanning old newspapers, you'll find that occasionally OLD music gets panned with equal venom.

On today's date in 1865, a concert by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra at Irving Hall opened with an orchestral arrangement of a Bach Passacaglia, followed by Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola.

The New York Times reviewer was not exactly thrilled with either selection:

"The Bach," wrote the Times, "is a fair representation of the treadmill. A culprit may travel on it for a day without advancing a step. It simply goes 'round and 'round in the most obvious style, and takes up threads with painful precision, and is generally DULL–like a superannuated church warden… The symphony for violin and viola by Mozart is a work generally avoided in Europe. The wearisome scale passages on the little fiddle repeated ad nauseam on the bigger one are simply maddening. On the whole, one would prefer death to a repetition of this production."

Thus spake the Times in April of 1865.

We should note in its defense that Americans had other matters on their minds that week. The Times headline for April 8th, the day of the concert, read: "Progress of the Rout of Lee's Army," and two days later, when the review appeared, the headline was: "Union Victory! Peace! Lee Surrenders His Whole Army!"

From 1951 to the time of his death in 1976, the Texas-born conductor Victor Alesandro led the San Antonio Symphony.

In addition to being a fine conductor, Alessandro had a very clever system for attracting talented players to his orchestra. He kept his eyes open for key players about to retire from all the top American orchestras and sent them tempting brochures describing San Antonio’s palm trees, old Spanish houses, and mild winters. Many accepted his invitations, settled in San Antonio, and served as models and mentors for the Symphony’s younger players.

In 1966, for example, John Corigliano, Sr., facing mandatory retirement as the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, took up the same position with the San Antonio Symphony.

And so it came about that on today’s date in 1968, John Corigliano, Senior, then aged 67, served as the concertmaster for the world premiere performance of a new Piano Concerto written by his son, composer John Corigliano, Junior, then aged 30. The premiere performers, pianist Hilde Somer and the San Antonio Symphony under Alessandro, even recorded the new work for Mercury Records.

Although well received at the time, Corigliano’s concerto was rather neglected for many years thereafter, but more recently has been receiving new performances and recordings. Reviewing a 1996 recording of the work, Edward Greenfield of GRAMOPHONE magazine wrote, “If Corigliano unashamedly uses a freely eclectic style, his writing is consistently positive and energetic, never merely conventional.”