On today’s date in 1938, two works by American composer Samuel Barber received their very high-profile premiere performances on a live, coast-to-coast broadcast by the NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Toscanini was impressed by Barber’s Symphony No. 1, which was performed at the 1937 Salzburg Festival, so Toscanini asked the 25-year old composer for a short orchestral piece, which Toscanini might perform with the newly-formed NBC Symphony.

Barber offered Toscanini his pick of two short pieces, and must have been surprised when he agreed to perform both of them: a newly-composed Essay for Orchestra and Barber’s arrangement for full string orchestra of a movement from a String Quartet he had written in 1936. Retitled Adagio for Strings, it was destined to become his best-known work.

Barber’s Adagio acquired a special resonance during World War Two, as a threnody for America’s war dead. It was also performed at the funeral of wartime President Franklin D. Roosevelt. More recently, Barber’s Adagio has been used to great effect in several successful films, including The Elephant Man and Platoon.

In a memorial tribute to Barber, American composer Ned Rorem wrote, “If Barber [25 years old when the Adagio was completed] later aimed higher, he never reached deeper into the heart.”

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): First Essay for Orchestra; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 9053

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings; Berlin Philharmonic; Semyon Bychkov, conductor; Philips 434 108

Take one flute, one oboe, and mix well with one each of a clarinet, bassoon and French horn — and you have the recipe for the traditional wind quintet. In the 19th century, this tasty musical mix was perfected by Europeans like the Czech composer Anton Reicha, who produced 24 wind quintets in his lifetime.

In the 20th century, American composers like Samuel Barber, Elliott Carter and John Harbison have all written one wind quintet each — matching Reicha’s in quality, if not in quantity. But other American composers have returned to the wind quintet for a second helping. On today’s date in 1993, the Wind Quintet No. 2 of Californian composer David Ward-Steinman received its premiere in Sacramento by the Arioso Quintet.

Ward-Steinman titled his quintet Night Winds, and asked his five players to occasionally double on some non-traditional instruments such as bamboo or clay flutes, a train-whistle, and even the traditional wind instrument of Indigenous Australians, the didgeridoo — all to create some atmospheric “night-wind” sounds.

In addition to wind quintets, David Ward-Steinman composed orchestral works, chamber music and pieces for solo piano. A native of Louisiana, Ward-Steinman studied with Darius Milhaud in Aspen, Milton Babbitt at Tanglewood and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.

Antonin Reicha (1770-1836): Wind Quintet No. 23; Albert Schweitzer Quintet; CPO 999027

David Ward-Steinman (1936-2015): Woodwind Quintet No. 2 (Night Winds); Arioso Quintet; Fleur de Son Classics 57935

On this day* in 1888, the orchestral suite Scheherazade, the most famous work of Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was first performed in St. Petersburg. The suite evokes episodes from The Arabian Nights. Though Rimsky-Korsakov was Russian, and most often concentrated on operas based on Russian history and fable, it’s ironic that his most popular work was inspired by folklore and fables from the Middle East.

Until recently, Western knowledge of the Middle Eastern music was mostly limited to such secondhand accounts. But today, we’re discovering firsthand both the traditional music of the Middle East and new works by contemporary composers from that part of the world.

One of these is Iranian-born American composer Reza Vali, who was born in Ghazvin, Iran in 1952 and began his musical studies at the Teheran Conservatory. In 1972, he moved to Vienna and studied at the Academy of Music, and then came to America to study at University of Pittsburgh.

Despite his training in Western technique, Vali has returned to the instruments and traditions of Persian music for inspiration. “Music is like the ocean,” he once said in an interview. “It moves between cultures. It doesn’t have boundaries. But that doesn’t mean that you have to lose your identity … you can have a pluralistic approach by also keeping your identity.”

*Julian calendar date: October 22

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Scheherazade; Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, conductor; Telarc 80568

Reza Vali (b. 1952): Folk Songs Set No. 9; Alberto Almarza, flute; Alvaro Bitran, cello; New Albion 077On This Day

On today’s date in 1873, a new piece by German composer Johannes Brahms received its first performance by the Vienna Philharmonic. The piece, Variations on a Theme by Haydn, was a big success at its premiere. Brahms must have heaved a great sigh of relief.

For the previous 18 years, Brahms had struggled to complete his Symphony No. 1, unconvinced that he had “the right stuff” to pull it off. In the summer of 1873, he wrote his Haydn Variations as a kind of personal test to see how audiences would react — and to bolster his own confidence. Lucky for us, it worked: Brahms returned to work on his Symphony No. 1 and went on to write four symphonies in all!

On today’s date in 1990, the Fourth Symphony of American composer Lou Harrison received its premiere by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Much of Harrison’s music has been influenced by non-Western traditions, especially the Javanese gamelan music, and his Symphony No. 4 is no exception.

Harrison was 73 when this symphony premiered, and he dubbed it his Last Symphony —apparently agreeing with Brahms that four was enough. When asked what would happen should he decide to write still another, Harrison quipped, “I’ll call it the Very Last Symphony.”

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Variations on a theme by Haydn; Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; Teldec 8.44005

Lou Harrison (1917-2003): Symphony No. 4 (Last Symphony); California Symphony; Barry Jekowsky, conductor; Argo 455 590

On today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1913, but after struggling through the “minor” disruptions of two World Wars and the Great Depression, the symphony’s 1948 season marked its rebirth as a major player among American orchestras. Since then, the Houston Symphony’s roster of conductors has included some of the greatest: Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli and André Previn, to name just a few.

For its 1948 debut concert, the new Houston Symphony commissioned and premiered a new work by Aaron Copland — a concert suite adapted from his latest film score.

Copland had gone to Hollywood early in 1948 to write the music for the cinematic version of John Steinbeck’s novella, The Red Pony, and spent ten weeks writing about an hour’s worth of music for the new film, which was scheduled for release in 1949 — so that meant his 1948 concert suite from The Red Pony debuted even before the movie.

The Houston Post’s review called Copland’s suite “clean, joyous, ingenious and irresistibly spirited,” and correctly predicted “Mr. Copland’s Red Pony has grand little gaits, and will stand playing again — here and in a lot of other places.”

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): The Red Pony Suite; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, conductor; Delos 3221

“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?”

On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better — the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”

The new opera, Lost Highway, is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by American film director David Lynch.

Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:

“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image ... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable … a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”

Olga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro from Lost Highway; Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; Kairos CD-0012542KAI

It was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. The premiere took place at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, as part of the 80th birthday celebrations for music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had commissioned Copland’s score for $500 — not a bad commission back then!

Copland used an old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts,” as a principal theme for his ballet. The austere but simple elegance of Shaker art reminded him, he said, of Graham’s style of dancing, and tied in with her vague suggestions that the ballet would be about early American pioneers. Copland left the title up to Graham.

Arriving in Washington for the rehearsals, Copland wrote: “The first thing I said to Martha when I saw her was, ‘What have you called the ballet?’ She replied, ‘Appalachian Spring.’ ‘What a pretty title. Where did you get it?’ I asked, and Martha said, ‘Well, actually it’s from a poem by Hart Crane.’ I asked, ‘Does the poem have anything to do with your ballet?’ ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I just liked the title.’”

Understandably, Copland said he was always amused when people said, “Oh Mr. Copland, I can just see the Appalachian Mountains when I hear your music!”

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 73653

On today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Prague early in October that year, but as singers and instrumentalists alike needed more time than originally planned to prepare his difficult new score, the premiere occurred later than planned.

The October 29th premiere was a triumph, and a Prague newspaper reported that Mozart was received with threefold cheers when he entered and left the theater. At the request of Joseph II, the Austrian emperor, Don Giovanni was staged in Vienna the following year. The emperor was pleased: “That opera is divine,” he told Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, but, surprisingly, the Viennese audiences didn’t seem to like it.

Da Ponte quoted the Emperor as suggesting Don Giovanni was just too complicated for their taste: “Such music is not meat for the teeth of my Viennese,” he said. In his memoirs, da Ponte wrote, “I reported this remark to Mozart, who replied quietly: ‘Well, give them time to chew on it, then.’”

”He was not mistaken,” continued da Ponte. “At each performance of Don Giovanni the applause increased, and little by little, even Vienna of the dull teeth came to savor it.”

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Don Giovanni; Michele Pertusi (as Leporello); London Philharmonic; Georg Solti, conductor; London 455 500

In 2016, Minneapolis-based jazz composer and pianist Jeremy Walker collaborated with Consortium Carissimi, a Twin Cities early music vocal ensemble in the creation of some brand-new music in the style of the ensemble’s namesake, 17th-century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi.

One of the pieces Walker composed was a duet for tenor and mezzo-soprano. The mezzo for the premiere performance was Clara Osowski, a singer with a special passion for art songs, past and present.

Since Osowski was as impressed with Walker’s music as he with her voice, after that concert they decided to embark on a project to infuse the modern jazz harmonies of Bill Evans into the Romantic art song genre of Schubert and Brahms.

They chose texts by Whitman, Longfellow, and Minnesota lyricist Greg Foley, for a song cycle, Haunted Blue.

“The ‘blue’ in the title refers to the overall mood of the music,” Walker explained. “But it also refers to the type of harmonies I’m using. The ‘haunted’ part is like when you’re half asleep and half awake at night, and dreams combine with reality.”

A studio recording and even some music videos were made, and on today’s date in 2018, Haunted Blue received its premiere public performance at a CD release concert in Minneapolis.

Jeremy Walker: ‘Alma Gentil’ and ‘The Rainy Day,’ from Haunted Blue Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano; Tefsa Wondemagegnehu, tenor; Jeremy Walker, piano; Haunted Blue CD 93428 00177

On this day in 1919, Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony in the premiere performance of his new Cello Concerto, with Felix Salmond as soloist.

What should have been a joyous occasion turned out to be a frustrating one — there simply wasn’t enough time to rehearse properly, and the premiere was a near-fiasco. Puzzled, the less-than-full house in Queen’s Hall gave Elgar a polite ovation but left shaking their heads.

Mrs. Elgar blamed the conductor, Albert Coates, who hogged all the orchestra’s rehearsal time working over the two pieces he was to conduct on the same program as Elgar’s new concerto, for which Coates would hand off the baton to Elgar. In her diary for October 26, she wrote, “Poor Felix Salmond in a state of suspense and nerves — wretched hurried rehearsal — an insult to Elgar from that brutal, selfish, ill-mannered bounder, Coates.”

After the botched premiere of the new concerto, critic Ernest Newman reported, “Never, in all probability, has so great an orchestra made so lamentable a public exhibition of itself.”

Despite this rough beginning, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has gone on to become one of the composer’s best-loved works worldwide, and has proven to be a favorite with the great cellists of our time, including British cellist Jacqueline du Pré.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Cello Concerto; Jacqueline du Pré, cello; Philadephia Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim, conductor; Sony 60789