Composers Datebook

The real story behind Richard Strauss’ decision to use a chamber orchestra for his opera Ariadne on Naxos — which premiered in Stuttgart on today’s date in 1912 — is complicated and a little mundane. We prefer a more “colorful” version that some in Stuttgart have proffered.

When a new opera house was being planned for that city, Strauss was asked how large the orchestral pit should be.

“Oh, it should hold about 100 players,” he suggested. So, to determine the size required, the architects rather naively asked the local military band to assemble 100 players, have them stand at attention, and measured the amount of space they occupied.

Now, soldiers standing at attention take up a lot less space than an equal number of seated symphonic musicians. And so, the resulting space in the new theater could only accommodate a chamber orchestra.

The Stuttgart Opera also wanted to launch their new theater with a brand-new opera commissioned from Strauss. When he learned what had happened, being the eminently practical sort he was, simply wrote his new opera for chamber ensemble of about 40 players.

Fact or fantasy, that’s how some like to tell it in Stuttgart.

Richard Strauss (1861-1949): Ariadne auf Naxos; Vienna Philharmonic; James Levine, conductor; DG 419 225

On today’s date in 1930,  Howard Hanson led the premiere performance of the full orchestral version of William Grant Still’s symphonic poem, Africa at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

Still had originally conceived Africa as a chamber work, dedicated to and premiered by great French flutist Georges Barrère earlier that same year.

In a letter to Barrère, he said his new work depicted “the Africa of my imagination,” explaining: “An American Negro has formed a concept of the land of his ancestors based largely on its folklore, and influenced by his contact with American civilization. He beholds in his mind’s eye not the Africa of reality, but an Africa mirrored in fancy, and radiantly ideal.”

That said, the Africa of Still’s imagination included not only serene, pastorale moments, but also — according to his wife — the surfacing of “unspoken fears and lurking terrors.”

In its revised full symphonic version, Africa proved successful recalls the colors of Rimksy-Korsakov’s reimagined pagan Russia, and as an orchestral showpiece proved successful in subsequent performances in Europe, but, for some reason known only to Still, Africa remained unpublished during his lifetime.

William Grant Still (1895-1978): Land of Romance and Land of Superstition, from Africa; Fort Smith ASym; John Jeter, conductor; Naxos 8.559174

On today’s date in 1959, the Detroit Symphony, led by eminent French conductor Paul Paray, gave the first performance of new music by American composer Walter Piston. He had studied in Paris with famous French composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and great French composer Paul Dukas, so perhaps this was an astute paring of composer and conductor.

In any case, to help celebrate the 100th Worcester Festival, Paray and the Detroit orchestra were on hand in Massachusetts for the premiere of Piston’s Three New England Sketches, an orchestral suite with three movements: Seaside, Summer Evening, and Mountains.

Piston didn’t intend these titles to be taken literally. “[They] serve in a broad sense to tell the source of the inspirations, reminiscences, even dreams that pervaded the otherwise musical thoughts of one New England composer,” he noted.

Piston certainly qualified as a bonafide New England composer. He was born in Rockland, Maine, in 1894, taught at Harvard, had a vacation home in Vermont, and died in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1976.

Even so, the most striking hallmark of his music remains its quite cosmopolitan style and neo-classical form — the lasting influence, perhaps, of his two famous French teachers.

Walter Piston (1894-1976): Three New England Sketches; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3106

Handel is the composer credited with “inventing” the organ concerto in the 18th century. Handel was a virtuoso performer on the organ, and, as a special added attraction during the London performances of some of his oratorios, one of his concertos would be featured as a kind of intermission feature. This served to showcase his skill as an organist — and perhaps to give his singers a chance to catch their breath between sections of the full-length oratorio.

Since then, a number of composers have added to the organ concerto repertory started by Handel.

On today’s date in 1990, on a CBC radio broadcast from the Calgary Organ Festival Competition, Snow Walker, a new organ concerto by the American composer Michael Colgrass had its premiere performance. Colgrass’ concerto is cast as an impressionistic musical picture of the Far North and the fortitude, humor and spirituality of Canada’s native Inuit peoples. The work is dedicated to Farley Mowat, the author of a true-life story of life in the Far North, Never Cry Wolf, familiar from a popular Disney movie. The Colgrass concerto provides musical evocations of a polar landscape, Inuit throat singing and a rambunctious dance finale.

George Frederic Handel (1685-1757): Organ Concerto, No. 4; Simon Preston, organ; Festival Orchestra; Yehudi Menuhin, conductor; EMI 72626

Michael Colgrass (1932-2019): Snow Walker; David Schrader, organ; Grant Park Orchestra; Carlos Kalmar, conductor; Cedille 90000 063

Let’s face it. Brevity and wit are not always qualities one associates with new music.

But today we offer a sample: this comic overture is less than five minutes long, and opens, as you just heard, with a Fellini-esque duet for piccolo and contrabassoon.

Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark is a rather burlesque celebration of modern theoretical physics. Its alliterative title evokes those subatomic particles known as “quarks” that, we’re told, make up our universe. And, since this music changes time signature so often, perhaps Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” is thrown in for good measure.

The music is by Marga Richter, who was born on this date in 1926 in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Richter received her early music training in Minneapolis, and then moved to New York’s Juilliard School. By the time of her death in 2020, she had composed over 75 works including an opera and two ballets, as well as two piano concertos and a variety of solo, chamber and symphonic works.

“Composing is my response to a constant desire to transform my perceptions and emotions into music … music is the way I speak to the silence of the universe,” Richter said.

Marga Richter (1926-2020): Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark; Czech Radio Orchestra; Gerard Schwarz; MMC 2006

On today’s date in 1950, famous oboist Marcel Tabuteau gave the premiere performance of this Pastorale for solo oboe, harp, and strings, with his colleagues from the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The music was by Howard Hanson, who dedicated the piece to his wife Peggy.

Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska in 1896. As a talented teenager, he recalls a German-born musician in New York asking him, “Well, now, Hanson, why do you waste your time at futile efforts in composition when you could became a great concert pianist?” This, he said, from someone who had never heard one note he had written.

“In the true German tradition, he figured that nobody from Nebraska could possibly write good music. It took 40 years to get rid of that kind of thinking in the U.S. — and we’re not over it yet,” Hanson recalled.

Hanson was a successful composer, conductor and educator in his early 80s when he made those comments, but he retained his sense of humor, as evidence by this comment from the octogenarian: “Peggy will say to me, ‘What are you going to do now?’ and I’ll say, ‘I’m going upstairs to waste my time in futile efforts at composition.’”

Howard Hanson (1896-1981): Pastorale; Randall Ellis, oboe; Susan Jolles, harp; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3105

According to Wikipedia, an art song is “a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment … often a musical setting of an independent poem or text intended for the concert repertory as part of a recital.”

The 600-plus art songs of the Viennese composer Franz Schubert are the most familiar examples of the genre and rank among the greatest achievements of the Romantic Era in music.

On today’s date in 1814, Schubert was just 17 when he finished one of the most famous of them, Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel, a remarkably empathetic setting of a scene from Goethe’s Faust in which the naïve young Gretchen confesses being both terrified and thrilled by falling passionately in love.

British pianist Graham Johnson has recorded all 600-plus Schubert songs with some of the greatest singers of our day, and said, “The most amazing thing is that a 17-year-old boy can somehow enter into the female psyche with such an incredible amount of understanding as if he himself had experienced such feelings … there is a real distinct feeling of Schubert blown away by the drama and the story he has read.”

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Gretchen am Spinnrade, D118; Elly Ameling, soprano; Dalton Baldwin, piano; Phillips 420870

In 1958, Minnesota was celebrating its centennial and decided to commission a symphony in honor of the occasion.

Just about everyone these days knows there are a lot of Norwegians in Minnesota, but even back in 1958, that was still fairly obvious, and so it seemed a good idea to ask a Norwegian composer to write a Minnesota Symphony.

And who better than Harald Saeverud, one of the most distinguished composers of that day, and a composer who had just been granted Norwegian knighthood in the order of Saint Olaf, no less.

Nor was Saeverud new to the symphony-writing game. His Minnesota Symphony was his Symphony No. 8. Its premiere performance occurred at Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1958, with the Minneapolis Symphony led by Antal Dorati. The capacity audience of 4000 gave Saeverud and his symphony a warm welcome.

For his part, Saeverud was equally gracious, writing, “With the map of Minnesota above my desk and with my thoughts and feelings concentrated on Minnesota’s history, I dove into the work, which proved increasingly fascinating as I became aware that it was simultaneously growing into a history of mankind.”

Harald Saeverud (1897-1992): Symphony No. 8 (Minnesota); Stavanger Symphony; Ole Kristian Ruud, conductor; BIS 972

By the mid-1940s, famous American bandleader Paul Whiteman was not as popular as he once was during the 20s and 30s. Even so, his name and orchestra were still a draw, and Whiteman was ever hopeful of introducing new pieces that might prove as popular as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Grofé’s Grand Canyon Suite — both commissioned by Whiteman in those earlier decades.

In 1944, Whiteman commissioned a number of short chamber orchestra works, or “symphonettes” as he dubbed them, for his new radio show Music out of the Blue, which aired at midnight.

“So if the pieces are too bad, few people will know it,” Whiteman explained to his radio bosses.

And so it was on today’s date in 1944 that one of these new pieces, commissioned from Aaron Copland, had its radio premiere. Its title was A Letter from Home.

In the context of an America still at war in Europe, this title had a special resonance for those with loved ones serving abroad. Copland himself had a brother in the army, and wrote the work while living in Mexico, where he, too, received letters from his sister back home.

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Letter from Home; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 49766

There are some operas which are rarely — if ever — staged, but whose music becomes famous — even wildly popular — in the concert hall. Everyone has heard the overture to Rossini’s William Tell, for example, but only a few fortunate (or very determined) opera fans ever get to see the whole opera staged.

Zoltán Kodály’s opera Háry János falls into this strange class of works both popular and obscure. This comic opera debuted at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest on today’s date in 1926 and recounts the adventures of an old veteran of the Napoleonic Wars named Háry János.

In the village tavern, Háry boasts of his heroic exploits: how he singlehandedly won a battle against Napoleon, for example, and how the emperor’s wife fell in love with him, and she would have run off with him if he’d wanted, but he chose to remain true to his Hungarian sweetheart back home.

You get the idea.

Kodály’s opera was a hit in Budapest but was not taken up elsewhere. But a concert suite of excerpts from its brilliant score depicting Háry János’s imaginary adventures became a popular showpiece for orchestras, an unbeatable combination of great tunes, colorful orchestration and smile-inducing wit.

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Háry János Suite; Budapest Festival Orchestra; Ivan Fischer, conductor; Philips 462 824