Composers Datebook

On today's date in 1972, a most unusual chamber work by the American composer George Crumb had its premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Ideally, and "impractically" according to Crumb, it SHOULD have been heard, not in a concert hall in March… but in the open air… heard at a distance across a body of water, on a moonlit evening in August.

The work was entitled "Vox Balaenae," which is Latin for "The Voice of the Whale," and it's scored for three masked musicians, performing on electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano.

Crumb writes, "The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask or visor-mask. The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature. I have also suggested that the work be performed under deep-blue stage lighting."

In the opening of his piece, marked "Vocalise... from the beginning of time," Crumb quotes, with tongue firmly planted in masked cheek, the famous sunrise theme from Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra," used to great effect in the opening of the Kubrick film "2001."

A new opera by Jules Massenet had its premiere at the Paris Opera on today's date in 1894. It was titled "Thais" and was based on a rather spicy novel of the same name by the popular French author of the day, Anatole France.

The novel and the opera are based on an old seventh-century manuscript, which mentions a fabulously beautiful Egyptian courtesan named Thais who converted to Christianity and spent the rest of her life meditating in seclusion on matters spiritual. In Massenet's opera, the conversion from strip-tease artiste to nun is depicted by an instrumental interlude, the famous "Meditation" from "Thais," which has become a favorite showpiece for solo violinists.

To add a dash of the piquant to the tale, in both the novel by Anatole France and in the opera by Massenet, the young monk who diligently convinces Thais to change her wicked ways suddenly falls madly in love with her himself, and just as diligently tries to persuade her to add just one more name—his—to her list of satisfied customers.

As they used to say in ancient Egypt: "Ooh-la-la!"

The thick historical novels of the 19th century French writer Alexandre Dumas, Sr. are packed with some fact and a lot of fiction. Chapter 22 of "The Three Musketeers," for example, set during the 17th century reign of King Louis XIII, begins as follows:

"Nothing was talked of in Paris but the ball which the aldermen were to give to the king and queen in which their Majesties were to dance the famous 'La Merlaison' — the favorite ballet of the king. Eight days had been spent preparing for the important evening. The city carpenters erected risers for the guests; the hall would be lit by two hundred huge candles of white wax, a luxury unheard of; and twenty violins were ordered, the price for them double the usual rate, since they would be playing all night."

In this case, Dumas was referencing a real event.

On today's date in 1635, at Chantilly castle, a gala ballet premiered. It depicted in stylized dance the Louis's favorite activity: hunting the blackbird ("la merlaison" in French). The choreography, the costumes, and music were all created by the King himself—who also danced several of the lead roles.

It got a rave review in the press of the day. If there were any critics, we suspect Cardinal Richelieu, the dreaded power behind the throne in Dumas's novel—and in real life—had them hauled off and "dealt with."

Ah yes, it's good to be King.

On today's date in 1996 at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, pianist Marvin Tartak gave the first performance of a new piano sonata, the sixth, of the American composer, Leo Ornstein.

That in itself might not seem so remarkable—unless you consider that the Sonata was written when the composer was about 90. In fact, very little about the life and music of Leo Ornstein was "unremarkable."

Ornstein was born in the 19th century and lived into the 21st. He was born in the Ukraine around 1893 (the exact date has never been determined), and, after the failed Russian revolution of 1905, came with his family to New York's Lower East Side. He made his New York debut as a pianist in 1911, and rapidly established himself as a composer as well, performing daring and dissonant avant-garde piano works with titles like "Wild Men's Dance" and "Suicide in an Airplane." He also composed more lyrical, atmospheric pieces and at least 8 piano sonatas, the last written as he neared 100 years of age.

This music is from a Naxos CD of Ornstein's Sonata No. 7, written in 1988, when the composer was in his spry mid-90s.

After a decade of world tours as a fiery piano virtuoso and four decades of dedicated teaching, Ornstein retired to Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he continued to compose and where he died on February 24, 2002.

It might seem farfetched that Katherine Hepburn, Winona Ryder and Charles Ives might have anything in common, but there IS a connection of sorts: Hepburn appeared in a 1933 film based on Louisa May Alcott's classic 19th century novel, "Little Women," Wynona Ryder starred in a 1994 Hollywood remake, and, in 1913, American composer Charles Ives composed the music we're hearing now—the second movement of his "Concord" sonata for piano, a movement titled "The Alcotts," which evokes Louisa May, her novel and her real-life family and friends, who included the New England "Transcendentalists," Emerson and Thoreau.

Set during the American Civil War, Alcott's "Little Women" chronicles the coming of age of four young women in Concord, Massachusetts. The story of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy has charmed readers and film-goers around the world. Ives's music, like Alcott's novel, is nostalgic, affectionate, and quietly powerful.

A young contemporary American composer, Mark Adamo, has written an opera based on Alcott's "Little Women", which premiered on today's date in 1998 at the Opera Studio of Houston Grand Opera. After its premiere, that company's general director, David Gockley, pronounced Adamo's opera "destined to become an American classic," and rescheduled "Little Women" for mainstage performances at Houston Grand Opera in March of 2000.

And Mr. Gockley's predication seems to have been accurate. Since the successful Houston Opera revival in 2000, Mark Adamo's version of "Little Women" has been staged again and again, to equal acclaim from audiences and critics.

The stage directions read: "The garden of the Grimaldi Palace outside Genoa. On the left side, the palace, directly in front, the sea. Dawn is breaking." The evocative music is by the Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, the prelude to his opera "Simon Boccanegra," which premiered on today's date in 1857 in Venice. Despite its shimmering prelude, Verdi's new opera was not well received. The critics felt it was one of those works which "does not make its effect immediately... It is written with the utmost exquisite craftsmanship but needs to be studied in all its details." Verdi, a practical man of the theater, knew what that sort of review really meant. He wrote: "I thought I'd done something passable, but it seems I was mistaken. The score is not possible as it stands. It is too sad, too depressing. I shall need to redo it to give it more contrast and variety, more life." The revised version of "Simon Boccanegra" premiered 24 years later, in 1881, with additions and alterations to the story by Arrigo Boito, the brilliant librettist for Verdi's final operas, "Otello" and "Falstaff." Despite the revisions, "Boccanegra" remained one of the least popular of Verdi's works for many decades. In the 1930s, it was revised successfully at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with an all-star cast, and since then, audiences have had more opportunities to "study" Verdi's score sufficiently to appreciate its "exquisite craftsmanship, contrast, variety, and life."

Today's date marks the birth anniversaries of two major 20th century American composers: Carl Ruggles was born in East Marion, Massachusetts on today's date in 1876, and Henry Cowell, in Menlo Park, California in 1897. Ruggles was a tough old bird, who wrote a small handful of tough, uncompromising musical works. He was the conductor of a symphony orchestra in Winona, Minnesota from 1908-1912, a teacher at the University of Miami from 1937-1943, and a talented painter to boot. His first music to be performed in public was entitled "A Voice Crying in the Wilderness," an apt description of Ruggles himself, a crusty loner who once claimed the only man he ever met who could out-swear him was his friend and colleague Charles Ives. He eventually retired to an old schoolhouse in Arlington, Vermont. Ruggles's striking orchestral works, with titles like "Sun-Treader" and "Men and Mountains", are occasionally revived, but he remains just a name for most 21st century concert-goers. Henry Cowell was a much more genial, out-going sort: a composer, performer and teacher who wrote a great deal of music, ranging from the dissonant and experimental to the beguilingly lyrical. Cowell was an early apostle of what we now call "world music," and in 1956 undertook a world tour, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the US State Department, which included lengthy stays in Iran, India and Japan, and resulted in Cowell writing a number of musical works incorporating ideas and musical instruments from those countries.

On today's date in 1915, the Moscow Synodal Choir gave the premiere performance of a new choral work by Sergei Rachmaninoff. In Russian, the work was titled Vsenoshchnoe bdeniye, which translates as "All-Night Vigil Service" or more commonly as "Vespers." This was Rachmaninoff's take on traditional liturgical melodies of the Easter Orthodox church. Rachmaninoff himself was not particularly religious, but by 1915, all Russians, religious or not, perhaps found solace in such music as the staggering casualties of the Russian Imperial troops during World War I became apparent. Rachmaninoff's "Vespers" was warmly received in Moscow and repeated five times within a month of its premiere. But in 1917, the Bolshevik revolution transformed Imperial Russia into a non-religious Soviet state. Rachmaninoff's "Vespers" remained pretty much forgotten until 1965, when Alexander Sveshnikov made the first recording of the work with the USSR State Academic Russian Choir for the Soviet record label Melodiya. Ironically, that Melodiya LP was never available for sale within the USSR, and was only issued as an export item to the West. It quickly became a best-seller, and Western audiences were astonished by both the emotional power of the work and the low bass voices required to perform it. Even by Russian standards, the bass parts are VERY low. When shown the manuscript score back in 1915, the work's original conductor shook his head, and said, "Now where on earth are we to find such basses? They are as rare as asparagus at Christmas!"

If "Entertainment Tonight!" were around in Paris in 1831, they would probably have offered a breathless special edition report on a concert that occurred on today's date that year. EVERYBODY who was ANYBODY was there: from the literary world, the French novelist Victor Hugo, author of "Les Miz," don't you know, and the writer Alfred de Mussett, who they SAY was living in sin with that cross-dressing Baroness, who, despite her sex, went by the name of George Sand. Oh, and the German poet Heinrich Heine was there, and from the music world, three of the leading opera composers of the day: the foreign born Giacomo Meyerbeer and Luigi Cherubini, and popular native son, Jacques Halevy. And who could miss the dashing, lion-maned Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt also seated in the theater? They were all there to witness the Parisian debut of the most charismatic performer of his time, the Italian violinist Nicolo Paganini. It was whispered that the fourth string on his violin was made from the intestine of his mistress, murdered at his own hand, and that he had spent 20 years in prison for the crime, with his violin his sole companion. Others hinted he had actually made a pact with Satan, trading his immortal soul for superhuman virtuosity! He looked like death warmed over, thin and gaunt, but played like a man possessed. Beat THAT, Ozzy Osbourne!

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born today's date in 1714 as the fifth child of Maria Barbara and Johann Sebastian Bach.

One of C.P.E. Bach's godparents was Georg Philipp Telemann. Papa J.S. Bach trained his son to be a skilled keyboardist and composer, and by his early 20s, CPE had landed a plum job in Berlin as court harpsichordist for Frederick the Great. CPE's keyboard skills were legendary. In 1753 he published "An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments," still required reading for anyone interested in 18th century performance practice.

In 1768, CPE succeeded his godfather Telemann as Director of Music for Hamburg's five main churches, and it was there that he died, aged 74, in 1788.

The 18th century music historian Charles Burney visited CPE in Hamburg, and recalled: "Mr. Bach was so obliging as to sit down to his favorite instrument, upon which he played three or four of his choicest and most difficult compositions... In the slow movements… he contrived to produce… a cry of sorrow and complaint, such as can only be effected on the clavichord, and perhaps by himself."

Mozart was a passionate admirer in the late 18th century, as was Brahms in the late 19th, but it wasn't until the latter half of the 20th century that CPE Bach gained widespread recognition as one of the greatest composers of his — or any — time.