Composers Datebook

Today's date marks the birthday anniversary of Morton Gould, a quintessentially American composer, conductor and advocate for music, who was born in Richmond Hill, New York, on today’s date in 1913.

A child prodigy, he published his first work of music at the tender age of six. His teenage years coincided with the Great Depression, and Gould played piano for New York movie theaters and vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as its staff pianist.

By the late 1930s, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for radio networks, and by the 1940s was writing scores for Hollywood films and Broadway shows. A decade or so later, he was writing music for TV. Gould became a favorite conductor for RCA recording sessions of both popular and classical music on LP.

All his life, Gould composed original, well-crafted works that gracefully incorporated American sounds ranging from spirituals to tap-dancing. One of these, for a singing fire department, he titled — with a sly wink at his colleague Aaron Copland — Hosedown.

Gould was a serious composer with a healthy sense of humor and a keen sense of the business of music. He served for many decades as the president of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), lobbying hard for the intellectual property rights of composers in the age of the Internet.

Gould died in 1996 at the newly-opened Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida, where he was invited to serve as its first resident guest composer.

Morton Gould (1913-1996): Spirituals for Strings; London Philharmonic; Kenneth Klein, conductor; EMI 49462

These days, no one is surprised if a popular film generates a series of sequels or even prequels, but back in the 1830s the idea of a composer coming up with a sequel to a symphony must have seemed a little odd. But that odd idea did pop into the head of French composer Hector Berlioz.

In 1830, Berlioz had a huge hit with his Symphonie Fantastique. That Fantastic Symphony told a story through music, based on the composer’s own real-life, unrequited love for a British Shakespearian actress. The story ends badly, with our hero trying to end it all with a dose of opium, which, while not killing him, does produce, well, “fantastic” nightmares in which he is condemned to death for killing his beloved who reappears at a grotesque witches’ sabbath.

That seems a hard act to follow, but two years later, Berlioz produced a musical sequel: Lelio, or the Return to Life, which premiered in Paris on today’s date in 1832. In this, our hero awakes from his drug-induced nightmare, and, with a little help from Shakespeare and a kind of 10-step arts-based recovery program, rededicates his life to music.

Berlioz intended the original and the sequel to be performed together as a kind of double-feature. Alas, while audiences thrill to the lurid Symphonie Fantastique, they tend to drift during the admirable, but rather boring rehab sequel, which is rarely performed.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Fantasy on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ from Lelio London Symphony; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 64103

On this date in 1813, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was played for the first time in Vienna. The occasion was a benefit concert in honor of the Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had died fighting Napoleon, with the concert's proceeds donated to their widows and orphans.

At its first rehearsal, some of the musicians found the part writing of the new work intimidating. A friend of Beethoven’s who sat in on rehearsals later recalled: “the violin players refused to play a passage and rebuked [Beethoven] for writing difficulties that were incapable of performance. But Beethoven begged the gentlemen to take the parts home with them. If they were to practice it at home it would surely go. The next day the passage went excellently, and the gentlemen themselves seemed to rejoice that they had given Beethoven such pleasure.” The slow movement of Beethoven’s symphony so pleased the Viennese audience at its premiere that it had to be encored.

On today’s date in 1980, a private tragedy also prompted music. On December 8 that year, ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City. American composer Aaron Jay Kernis was then a student at the Manhattan School of Music, living not far from where Lennon was slain. The death moved Kernis to reshape elements of Lennon’s song “Imagine” into an altogether new work for cello and piano: Meditation (in memory of John Lennon).

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Vienna Philharmonic; Carlos Kleiber, conductor; DG 447 400

Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960): Meditation (in memory of John Lennon); Eberli Ensemble; Phoenix 142

Maybe you’re one of those die-hard classical music fans who records your favorite orchestra’s radio broadcasts. Starting in the 1950s, home tape recorders made it easy to record off the air, and the arrival of cassette recorders in the 1960s made it more affordable.

But in the 1930s and 40s, you had to be pretty darn wealthy to afford home recording equipment, which was bulky and only able to record about 14 minutes at a time on to 16-inch vinyl discs. One such home recordist was Dr. Edwin L. Gardner of Minneapolis, who, on today’s date in 1941 was recording a Sunday afternoon New York Philharmonic broadcast of the first symphony by Shostakovich and the second piano concerto by Brahms.

Dr. Gardner was probably annoyed by the first news flash which interrupted the Shostakovich symphony: a U.S. Army transport carrying lumber had been torpedoed 1300 miles west of San Francisco. But Gardner kept recording, even during the preempted intermission of the Philharmonic broadcast devoted to the first reports of the devastating Japanese attack at the U.S. Navy’s base in Pearl Harbor.

And so, in addition to capturing most of the Shostakovich and Brahms he set out to record, Dr. Gardner also captured in real time a dramatic moment in American history.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 88697683652

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920, he would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time — and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical music.

Brubeck studied with Schoenberg and Milhaud, and in the late 1940s and ‘50s formed a jazz quartet incorporating Baroque-style counterpoint and unusual time signatures into a style that came to be known as “West Coast” or “cool” jazz, culminating in the 1960 release of a landmark jazz album for Columbia Records, Time Out. This album produced two Hit Parade singles: Blue Rondo à la Turk and Take Five. Ironically, he had to fight to convince Columbia to release an album composed totally of original material with no familiar standards to help sales!

In addition to works for chamber-sized jazz combos, Brubeck has written a number of large-scale sacred works, among them a 1975 Christmas Choral Pageant, La Fiesta de la Posada, or, The Festival of the Inn.

Originally written to celebrate the restoration of a Spanish mission in California, it wound up being premiered in Hawaii by the Honolulu Symphony. Since its premiere, La Fiesta de la Posada has been performed by both professional and amateur ensembles, ranging from symphony orchestras to mariachi bands. Its premiere recording was made by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting.

Dave Brubeck (1920-2012): Blue Rondo a la Turk; The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Columbia 40585

Dave Brubeck: La Fiesta del Posada; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Columbia Legacy 64669

So what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you’re Moravian-born composer Leoš Janáček, you call it Glagolitic, since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that.

The idea came from a clerical friend who complained about the lack of original religious music in Czechoslovakia and suggested Janáček’s do something about it. His Glagolitic Mass premiered in Brno on today’s date in 1927. One reviewer wrote it was “a marvelous religious work of an old composer” — to which Janacek snapped back: “I am not old. And I am certainly not religious!”

Now, people do say “you’re only as old as you feel,” and 73-year old Janáček had for many years been in love with a much younger woman who inspired his best works, and rather than any religious convictions, Janacek told another reporter that the piece was in fact jump-started by an electrical storm he witnessed and described as follows: ‘It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it … I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ‘Gospodi pomiluj’ [Love have mercy] and nothing more than the joyous shout ‘Slava, Slava!’ [Glory].”

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928): Glagolitic Mass; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; DG 429182

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was first performed on today’s date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit.

The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: “The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue.” According to Hanslick, the concerto’s finale: “transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian festival. We see gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze … Tchaikovsky’s Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear.”

Ouch! Tchaikovsky’s score survived the bad review, but a more recent American work suffered a far unkinder cut. The original film score for the 1968 blockbuster movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by Alex North, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on today's date in 1910. Director Stanley Kubrick hired North to write the music for 2001, but Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-recorded classical and contemporary music instead.

When North attended the New York premiere of 2001, he was devastated that not one minute of the music he had written was included in the final edit.

Believe it or not, no one had informed him in advance!

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Violin Concerto; Itzhak Perlman, violin; London Symphony; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor; Chesky 12

Alex North (1910-1991): Unused Opening Theme for 2001: A Space Odyssey; National Philharmonic; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor; Varese Sarabande 66225

It was wet and cold in New York on today’s date in 1925, but a curious crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for a concert by the New York Symphony. Walter Damrosch was to conduct the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto by George Gershwin, who would also be the soloist.

The audience reacted with cheers and bravos, but the reviews were mixed: “Conventional, trite ... [and] a little dull” was the verdict of one; but another was enthusiastic, suggesting: “Of all those writing the music of today, [Gershwin] alone actually expresses US.” In the America of 1925, that “us” would have included the owners of speakeasies, raccoon coats, and Stutz Bearcat roadsters. It was the Jazz Age — an era magically captured in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby.

Seventy-four years later, in December of 1999, John Harbison’s opera based on The Great Gatsby premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, playing to sold-out houses. Once again, audiences were enthusiastic — the critics less so.

To capture the mood of the 1920s, Harbison had composed a number of original songs in Jazz-Age style, which he incorporated as themes in his opera. These tunes have even been published as a separate Gatsby Songbook!

Imagine: a modern opera with tunes audiences can actually hum as they leave the theater! What will they think of next?

John Harbison (b. 1938): Remembering Gatsby Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 444 454

George Gershwin (1898-1937): Piano Concerto; Peter Jablonski, piano; Royal Philharmonic; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 430 542

On today’s date in 1949, Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis was the venue for the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók’s last orchestral piece: his Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. The soloist was William Primrose, who had commissioned the work, with the Hungarian-born conductor Antal Dorati leading the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.

Bartók had died in 1945, leaving extensive but incomplete sketches for the concerto he was writing for Primrose. After his death, the Viola Concerto was completed and orchestrated by his friend and fellow Hungarian, Tibor Sérly, who had also put the finishing touches on Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which also premiered posthumously.

The 1949 premiere of the Viola Concerto in Minneapolis attracted worldwide attention. To the surprise of some, it also went over very well with its first-night audience at Northrop Auditorium.

At the dress rehearsal, Dorati had predicted as much: “This is one time the audience need have no qualms about the word ‘contemporary’ as applied to the music it’s about to hear.” Dorati’s view was that the public was finally catching up with Bartók's highly original idiom. “It’s not a case of a composer becoming famous because he is dead,” Dorati said. “It is true there has been a great surge of performances of Bartók’s music since his death, but that is because the public was ready to hear his music.”

Béla Bartók (1881-1945): Viola Concerto (completed by Tibor Serly); Hong-Mei Xiao, viola; Budapest Philharmonic; Janos Kovacs, conductor; Naxos 8.554183

Because it's often played at weddings, the Trumpet Voluntary is one piece of Baroque music that just about everyone has heard. Once attributed to famous 17th century British composer Henry Purcell, this music was, in fact, composed by Purcell’s slightly younger and not-so-famous contemporary Jeremiah Clarke.

Clarke was born around 1674 and sang as a boy soprano in London’s Chapel Royal. After his voice changed, he became a choir director and rejoined the Chapel Royal as an organist in 1700. Tragically, on December 1, 1707, Clarke shot himself — according to some contemporary accounts as the result of a hopeless love affair.

And speaking of such things: also on today’s date — in 1886 — the American premiere of Tristan Und Isolde, Richard Wagner’s classic opera of ill-fated passion, took place at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Anton Seidl, a protégé of Wagner, conducted. While composing Tristan, Wagner wrote to his lover, Mathilde Wesendonck: “Child! This Tristan is turning into something fearsome ... the opera will probably be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Good performances will drive people mad!”

If not driven mad, American audiences in 1886 were at least remarkably enthusiastic. The Musical Courier reported that “the audience filled every available seat and listened to the performance, which lasted until nearly midnight, with an attention and genuine enthusiasm unequaled in the musical history of this land.”

Jeremiah Clarke (ca. 1674-1707): Trumpet Voluntary (Prince of Denmark March); Maurice André, trumpet; Jane Parker-Smith, organ; EMI 64899