Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1945, Sergei Prokofiev conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 5. Written when the tide of World War II was turning in the favor of the Allies, the premiere came one day after news reached Moscow that Soviet troops had begun a successful counteroffensive against the Germans.

The symphony proved to be one of Prokofiev’s strongest works, and in the context of 1945 must have had an incredible emotional impact. It was a tremendous success in Moscow, and also in Boston, where Serge Koussevitzky conducted the American premiere later that same year. Prokofiev even made the cover of Time magazine. As musicologist Michael Steinberg put it, “No question, the Fifth was a repertory piece from day one.”

How sad, then, to realize how soon things would change for the man who wrote it. In three years Prokofiev — along with Shostakovich and others — would be denounced by Soviet authorities for supposedly straying from the party line. In five years, when the Red Scare in America turned our one-time Ally into public enemy No. 1, conductor Maurice Abravenel received a death threat when the Utah Symphony announced the Salt Lake City premiere of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Symphony No. 5; St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Yuri Temirkanov, conductor; RCA/BMG 60984

On today’s date in 1961, a new work by German-born American composer Ingolf Dahl received its premiere performance in Los Angeles. Sinfonietta for Concert Band was commissioned by the College Band Directors National Association, who were eager to expand band repertory with major new works of the highest quality.

Dahl had emigrated to the United States in 1938 and settled in Los Angeles, where he met and befriended Igor Stravinsky, who gave him some practical advice about composing for wind band. “You must approach this task as if it had always been your greatest wish to write for these instruments,” suggested Stravinsky, “as if all your life you had wanted to write a work for just such a group."

“This was good advice,” recalled Dahl. “[And] after the work was done that it turned out to be indeed the piece that I had wanted to write all my life. I wanted it to be a substantial piece that, without apologies for its medium, would take its place alongside symphonic works of any other kind.”

Dahl and the College Band Directors National Association must have been pleased to see their Sinfonietta rapidly become an established classic of the wind band repertory.

Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970): Sinfonietta; DePaul University Wind Ensemble; Donald DeRoche, conductor; Albany 435

As 1999 drew to a close, it was a matter of debate whether — chronologically speaking — the new Millennium really began in 2000 or 2001. As far as the musical world was concerned, why wait? The shift from 1999 to 2000 occasioned hundreds of celebratory concerts and special commissions worldwide.

While not originally intended as a Millennium commission, a major new work by American composer John Adams had its European premiere in December of 1999 and its American debut in January of 2000. Years before, the San Francisco Symphony had asked Adams to write a big work for their chorus and orchestra. Then came a request from the Châtelet Theater in Paris for a new opera. Adams combined both requests, folding in a dream of his own. As he put it, “I wanted to write a Messiah.” The result was El Niño, a Nativity oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra that could be performed as either a concert hall piece or a fully staged theatrical work.

Kent Nagano conducted El Niño’s world premiere in Paris on December 15, 1999, and the same cast and conductor gave its American premiere in San Francisco on today’s date in 2000.

John Adams (b. 1947): excerpts from El Niño; soloists; Kent Nagano, conductor; Nonesuch 79634

Franz Berwald was a Swede who lived in the early 19th century and who made his living first as an orthopedic surgeon and later as the manager of a sawmill and glass factory. But these days, nobody cares very much about all that. Berwald’s true passion was music, and in addition to operas and concertos, he wrote four symphonies, only one of which was performed during his lifetime, and that to mixed reviews.

Berwald spent some years in Vienna, where a few of his works were performed. After Berwald’s death in 1868, the crusty, conservative Viennese music critic Eduard Hanslick appraised him as “a man stimulating, witty, prone to ‘bizarrerie,’ [but who] as a composer lacked creative power and fantasy.”

Oddly enough, it’s exactly Berwald’s “bizarrerie,” or amusing strangeness, that appealed to later generations — and likewise his creative power and fantasy. For many music lovers today, Berwald ranks as Sweden’s first great Romantic composer and symphonist.

This did not happen overnight, however. Berwald’s Symphony No. 3, (Singulière), was written in 1845, but had to wait 37 years after the death of its composer for its first public performance in Stockholm on today’s date in 1905.

Franz Berwald (1796-1868): Symphony No. 3 (Singulière); Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra; Okko Kamu, conductor; Naxos 8.553052

On this day in 1947, Pierre Monteux led the San Francisco Symphony in the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 2 by American composer Roger Sessions. Prior to this work, Sessions had written in a more broadly accessible style, but this new symphony proved more dissonant and challenging. At the time, Sessions cautiously stated, “Tonality is complex and even problematical nowadays.”

For their part, the San Francisco audiences found the new work both complex and problematical. There was hardly any applause. Musical America’s critic wrote that Sessions “seemed to express the epitome of all that is worst in the life and thinking of today.”

Ouch! Today, Sessions’ Symphony No. 2 doesn’t sound all that challenging, but performances of this or any of his symphonies remain rare events.

While Sessions’ symphony was being panned in San Francisco, a new stage work by expatriate German composer Kurt Weill opened to rave reviews in New York. Kurt Weill’s Street Scene opened on Broadway on this same date in 1947.

“[It’s] the best contemporary musical production to grace any American stage,” enthused the Musical America critics. “We cannot imagine that an audience from any walk of life would not enjoy it. It has everything.”

Roger Sessions (1896-1985): Symphony No. 2; San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor; London 443 376

Kurt Weill (1900-1950): Act 1 Intro from Street Scene; Scottish Opera Orchestra; John Mauceri, conductor; London 433 371

When you were a kid, did your mother warn you about playing with sharp sticks?

Well, conductors play with sharp sticks, and it can prove dangerous. In 1976, while conducting Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, conductor Georg Solti managed to stab himself in the forehead with his own baton during the third act, causing quite a bloody mess. It’s said Solti had already broken two batons during Acts I and II but managed not to hurt anyone.

Before batons came into common use in the early 19th century, musicians just used their hands or a rolled-up piece of music paper to keep time.

Unfortunately for him, Italian-born French Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully chose to employ a long, heavy staff when he was conducting. He was thumping out the beat during a performance of his own Te Deum on today’s date in 1687, and, like Solti, must have gotten carried away and accidentally smashed the staff into his toe. He continued conducting, but an abscess soon developed in the self-inflicted wound, followed by gangrene which spread through his lower leg and Lully died a few weeks later.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687): Galliarde from Trios pour le Coucher du Roi; Chicago Baroque Ensemble; Cedille 043

The fairytale opera Sadko by Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov had its first performance in Moscow on today’s date in 1898. This opera is still staged in Russia, but rarely anywhere else — even though some of its wonderful melodies have proven extremely popular. One of the opera’s arias had a tune so catchy that it was set to English words as “Play That Song of India Again” and became a best-selling Paul Whiteman recording in the 1920s. In the big-band era, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Song of India even made the American hit parade.

The line between popular culture and classical music has often been blurred — and seldom so wickedly as in the works of American composer Michael Daugherty. Take his Le Tombeau de Liberace, for example. Now, in classical music terminology, a “tombeau” is a memorial tribute to an eminent musician or composer — in this case, it’s Wladziu Valentino Liberace, the flamboyant, rhinestone-encrusted pianist and showman who died in 1987.

Many of Daugherty’s other concert pieces have also been inspired by pop icons, real and imaginary, ranging from Desi Arnaz to Superman.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Song of India from Sadko (arr Kreisler); Gil Shaham, violin; Akira Eguchi, piano; DG 447 640

Michael Daugherty (b. 1954): Candelabra Rhumba from Le Tombeau de Liberace; Paul Crossley, piano; London Sinfonietta; Markus Stenz, conductor; Argo 458 145

On today’s date in 1733, music-loving readers of the Leipzig newspaper Nachricht auch Frag und Anzeiger would have seen this welcome announcement: “Tonight at 8 o’clock there will be a Bach concert at Zimmermann’s Coffeehouse on Catharine Street.”

So, in addition to a Grande Latté or Double-shot Depth-Charge, Zimmermann’s patrons could treat themselves to a Grand Suite or Double-Concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach. As if Bach wasn’t busy enough providing all those sacred cantatas and organ chorales for two Leipzig churches every Sunday, he was also in charge of that city’s Collegium Musicum, an organization that presented more secular musical fare.

It’s likely that on occasional weekday nights at Catharine Street, most of Bach’s concertos and chamber works were performed by Bach, alongside many of the same musicians he employed each Sunday for his church music.

Given his staggering workload, it’s not too far-fetched to assume that caffeine helped Bach stay focused and alert: one of his secular cantatas might even be considered as an early form of an advertising plug: the humorous text of Bach’s Coffee Cantata recounts how a young woman’s addiction to coffee triumphs over her stuffy father’s moral objections to the tasty brew.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Harpsichord Concerto; Gustav Leonhardt, Herbert Tachezi, harpsichord; Leonhardt Consort; Teldec 35778

Coffee Cantata; Christine Schaefer, soprano; Stuttgart Bach-Collegium; Helmuth Rilling, conductor; Hanssler 98.161

In the opinion of General George Washington, a commanding plateau on the west bank of the Hudson River, about 40 miles north of New York City, was a key strategic position during America’s War for Independence. Washington had fortifications built there and transferred his headquarters to this “West Point” in 1779. In 1802, after America’s independence had been won, President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation establishing a United States Military Academy at West Point.

150 years later, in 1952, the West Point Military Band decided to observe the Academy’s Sesquicentennial by asking prominent composers to write celebratory works to mark the occasion. A number of composers responded, including French composer Darius Milhaud. Milhaud’s West Point Suite was premiered by the West Point Band at Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1952, with Captain Francis Resta conducting, and proved to be one of the most successful and oft-performed of these Sesquicentennial pieces.

The previous year, Milhaud had paid a visit to West Point to hear the band, as he wanted to assess both their size and ability. He was impressed by what he heard — and surprised as well when the band struck up “Happy Birthday” in his honor. It seems that both Milhaud and his wife had completely forgotten their September 4 visit coincided with the composer’s 60th birthday!

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): West Point Suite; Liszt Academy Symphonic Band; Laszlo Marosi, conductor; Hungaroton 32066

It may be a hotly contested statement that New York is the cultural capital of the United States, but few would deny that city’s important role in so much of our musical history.

In 1992, to celebrate its 150th anniversary, the New York Philharmonic commissioned many new works by leading composers and spread out their celebratory premieres over several years. On today’s date in 1996, Leonard Slatkin conducted one of these: an orchestral tribute to New York written by a native son — Toward the Splendid City, a work by Richard Danielpour.

While intended as sonic portrait of his hometown, it was written entirely outside of the city. As he himself explained:

“[It’s] is one of the very few works I’ve written completely away from New York — work on the piece began in Seattle and was completed in Taos, New Mexico — and, to an extent, it expresses the nostalgia I felt for the city. It became my sonic postcard of the town. One passage, a sound-painting with string harmonics, celesta, harp, vibes, and bells, was inspired by my memory of floating above New York at night on a plane and seeing the lights of the city in the mist...”

Richard Danielpour (b. 1956): Toward the Splendid City; Philharmonia Orchestra; Zdenek Macal, conductor; Sony 60779