Composers Datebook

For their February 2013 cover story, the editors of BBC Music Magazine, came up with a list of the 50 most influential people in the history of music. Bach was on it, as you might expect — but so was Shakespeare.

Any music lover can see the logic in that, and cite pieces like Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet, or all the great operas based on Shakespeare’s plays, ranging from Verdi’s Falstaff to a recent setting of The Tempest by Thomas Adès.

And speaking of The Tempest, in New York on today’s date in 1981, Sharon Robinson premiered After Reading Shakespeare, a new solo cello suite she commissioned from American composer Ned Rorem.

“Yes,” Rorem said, “I was re-reading Shakespeare the month the piece was accomplished… Yet the experience did not so much inspire the music itself as provide a cohesive program upon which the music be might formalized, and thus intellectually grasped by the listener.” Rorem even confessed that some of the titles were added after the fact, “as when parents christen their children.“  

After all, as Shakespeare’s Juliet might put it, “What’s in a name?”

Ned Rorem (1923-2022): After Reading Shakespeare; Sharon Robinson, cello; Naxos 8.559316

On today’s date in 2002, a new violin concerto received its premiere by the Boston Symphony and German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the new work’s composer, Andre Previn conducting. Previn was born in Berlin, came to the United States in 1939, and became an American citizen in 1943.

His concerto reflects a homecoming of sorts in its third movement, “From a Train in Germany.”  In 1999, while riding on a German train, Previn had telephoned a birthday greeting to his manager, who suggested that the new composition he was planning for Boston might reflect that return to the country of his birth. And so its third movement ended up incorporating a German children’s song suggested by Anne-Sophie Mutter, one Previn had known as a child.

Autobiographical inferences throughout the concerto are also suggested by an inscription from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, which reads: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” And, as if to underscore the autobiographical interplay of life and art, Mutter and Previn were married on August 1, 2002, five months after the premiere of “their” Concerto.

André Previn (1930-2019): Violin Concerto; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Boston Symphony; André Previn, conductor; DG 474500

In 1986, the city of Chicago celebrated its 150th anniversary, and an anonymous music patron was willing to back the commission of a big new orchestral work for the pride of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its superstar conductor back then, namely George Solti.

The manager of the Chicago Symphony approached American composer George Rochberg about writing something, suggesting that the patron specifically wanted a concerto for brass and orchestra. Not that surprising, since the Chicago Symphony then and now has special reason to be proud of its brass section. Rochberg’s counter-proposal was that he would write a symphony, reassuring the orchestra’s manager: “When I write my new symphony, I will not neglect the brass.”

Some months later, the composer met with Solti to outline his revised plans for the Chicago commission. When Solti requested extra brass and percussion, Rochberg recounted the story of the anonymous patron’s commission of a Concerto for Brass, to which Solti, smiling broadly, replied: “Oh, that was me!” — and readily agreed to a symphony instead of a concerto.

Rochberg’s brassy Symphony No. 5, was premiered by Solti and the Chicago Symphony on today’s date in 1986.

George Rochberg (1918-2005): Symphony No. 5; Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Christopher Lyndon-Gee, conductor; Naxos 8.559115

The University of Puerto Rico is the main public university system in the island commonwealth, with 11 campuses, over 4000 faculty members, and some 40,000 students. In 2003, to celebrate the centennial of its founding on March 12, 1903, the University commissioned a new work for guitar and orchestra, to be premiered by virtuoso Pepe Romero and the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra.

The composer was Ernesto Cordero, an accomplished guitarist, whose Carnegie Hall debut as both performer and composer was praised by The New York Times, who described his technique as “impeccable” and his compositions as “a healthy combination of skill, sensitive invention, and sound musical effect.”

Cordero was born in New York City in 1940, but studied at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and the Madrid Royal Conservatory in Spain, followed by study with the Italian composer Roberto Caggiano in Rome and with the Cuban composer Julian Orbón in New York.

Cordero’s 2003 Concierto Festivo was his fourth guitar concerto, and was dedicated to Pepe Romero, who declared the new work “brilliant,” and described it as “wonderful bridal feast where the extraordinary knowledge of the guitar and the divine inspiration of the singular composer Ernesto Cordero wed.”

Ernesto Cordero (b. 1946); Concierto Festivo; Pete Romero, guitar; I Solisti di Zagreb; Naxos 8572707

These days if someone goes to all the trouble to write a symphony, they’re lucky to hear it performed once — and it might be years before a second hearing. But in 1791, when Haydn paid his first visit to England, Londoners were so enthusiastic about his new symphonies they asked for repeat performances as soon as possible. On today’s date in 1791, the work we know as Haydn’s Symphony No. 92 had its London premiere, and, “by particular desire,” as they phrased it back then, was repeated a week later and again the following month.

And when Haydn paid a visit to Oxford University that summer to receive an honorary doctorate, he led a performance of this same symphony at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre. Ever since, this particular English favorite has been nicknamed Haydn’s Oxford Symphony.

Haydn, being a politically astute sort of chap, didn’t publicize to his British fans that one of their favorite symphonies was actually commissioned by a French Count who had sponsored a series of Haydn concerts in Paris some five years earlier. One wonders how the music-loving Count fared during the French Revolution, which was well underway in 1791.

Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1808): Symphony No. 92 (Oxford); Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra; Adam Fischer, conductor; Nimbus 5269

Following the successful premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in 1876, New England composer John Knowles Paine finished a second, which he gave a German subtitle: Im Fruehling or In Springtime. In 19th century America, “serious” music meant German music, and “serious” musicians like Paine all studied in Germany. Returning home, Paine became the first native-born American to win acceptance as a symphonic composer, and, accepting a teaching post at Harvard, became that school’s first professor of music.

On today’s date in 1880, when Paine’s Spring Symphony was premiered at Sanders Theater, the normally staid Bostonians went nuts. One critic who was present, recalled that “ladies waved their handkerchiefs, men shouted in approbation, and the highly respected John S. Dwight, arbiter in Boston of music criticism, stood in his seat frantically opening and shutting his umbrella as an expression of uncontrollable enthusiasm.”

Paine’s music remained tremendously popular in his own day. In 1883 George Henschel, then the conductor of the Boston Symphony, was sent the following poetic suggestion about his programming:

Let no more Wagner themes thy bill enhance
And give the native workers just one chance.
Don’t give that Dvořák symphony a-gain;
If you would give us joy, oh give us Paine!

John Knowles Paine (1839-1906): Symphony No. 2; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor; New World 350

On today’s date in 1706, German composer and organist Johann Pachelbel was buried in Nuremberg, the town where he was born 53 years earlier.

In his day, Pachelbel was regarded as an innovative composer of Protestant church music and works for harpsichord and organ. He was acquainted with the Bach family, and was, in fact, the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach, and served as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relatives.

Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten by most music lovers until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little canon he had written would suddenly become one of the best-known classical themes of our time. In 1979, American composer George Rochberg even included variations on Pachelbel’s famous Canon as the third movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.

Like Bach, some of Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, and died there in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach.

George Rochberg (1918-2005): Variations on the Pachelbel Canon; Concord String Quartet; RCA/BMG 60712

As today is International Women's Day, we thought we’d tell you about a wonderful French composer you may or may not have heard of before.

Mélanie Hélène Bonis, or Mel Bonis as she preferred to be called, was a prolific composer of piano and organ works, chamber music, art songs, choral music, and several orchestral pieces. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where her teachers included César Franck. She was born in 1858 and died in 1937, so her lifetime spanned the age of Hector Berlioz to Alban Berg.

In the 1890s, Bonis reconnected with her first love, a man she had met while still a student, who had encouraged her musical talent. So she left her husband, who did not encourage her, to devote herself full-time to her music. Initially performed and admired in Paris, after World War I her music was neglected, and she became bedridden from arthritis. Despite everything, she continued to compose up to the time of her death at 79.

Among her works are seven piano portraits of women, collectively titled Femmes de Légende, or Legendary Women — some of which, like Salomé, she arranged for full orchestra.

Mel Bonis (1858-1937): Salomé; Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse; Leo Hussain, conductor; Bru Zane BZ-2006

On today’s date in 1953, Pageant, a new work for symphonic winds premiered with the University of Miami Band. It was written by American composer Vincent Persichetti, who conducted the performance, as he did the work’s New York City debut later that same year with the Goldman Band, then America’s premiere professional wind ensemble, who had commissioned the work.

It might seem odd that an amateur, student ensemble should premiere a work commissioned for professionals, but in the 1950s, when the U.S. college system was rapidly expanding, the savvy Mr. Persichetti was ready and willing to supply both students and professionals with more than a dozen new wind band scores to perform.

He put it this way: “I find wonderful performances in the universities around the country. They may be students, but … they’ll find something there that you maybe didn’t quite even dream of, and make something of it, whereas sometimes the professional orchestras don't always get it as quickly. [The student musicians] have to work harder, but they do this all through high school and college, and by the time they get to the end of college they know what music is about and can phrase and shape it with some conviction.”

Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987): Pageant; Winds of the London Symphony Orchestra; David Amos, conductor; Naxos 8.570123

The eastern Russian city of Kuibyshev might seem an unlikely site for an important symphonic premiere, but from 1941 to 1943, Kuibyshev was the temporary capital of the Soviet Union. As German and Finnish troops advanced from the west, the Russian government and its cultural institutions moved east. Among the refugees relocated to Kuibyshev were the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra from Moscow and composer Dimitri Shostakovich from Leningrad. And so, on today’s date in 1942, Kuibyshev was the venue for the world premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad).

A microfilm copy of the new score was flown to Tehran, then transported by car to Cairo, then flown to Brazil for transfer by the U.S. Navy to New York, where the American premiere was given on July 19, 1942, by the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini.

Less than a month later, on August 9, 1942, the Leningrad Symphony was even performed in the besieged and starving city of Leningrad. The few musicians still capable of performing were given extra rations to keep up their strength, and, to ensure a measure of quiet during their performance, a Russian artillery commander ordered an intensive artillery bombardment on the enemy troops surrounding the city.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad); Kirov Orchestra and Rotterdam Philharmonic; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Philips 376-02