Composers Datebook

By the time of his death in 1998, pop singer Frank Sinatra was such a domineering figure in his field that he was known as “The Chairman of the Board.” By the time of his death in 1992, the same nickname might have applied to the American composer William Schuman, who was, at various times, director of publications for G. Schirmer, president of the Juilliard School, president of Lincoln Center, and on the board of many other important American musical institutions. He even looked the part of a distinguished, well-dressed CEO. Oddly enough, he came rather late to classical music.

Schuman was born on today’s date in 1910, and, as a teenager in New York City, was more interested in baseball than music, even though his dance band was the rage of Washington High School. It was with some reluctance that 19-year old Billy Schuman was dragged to a New York Philharmonic concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The program included a symphony by someone named Robert Schumann, and Billy was pretty impressed.

When he heard the Symphony No. 1 of contemporary American composer Roy Harris in 1933, Schuman was hooked, and soon was writing concert music himself. By 1941, when his Symphony No. 3 premiered, he was recognized as a major talent, and in 1943 he was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Music.

William Schuman (1910-1992): Symphony No. 3; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony Classical 63163

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Symphony No. 1 (Spring); Berlin Philharmonic; James Levine, conductor; DG 435 856

Roy Harris (1899-1979): Symphony No. 1; Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor; Albany/Louisville First Edition 012

On today’s date in 1778, Italy’s most famous opera house opened with a performance of L’Europa Riconosciuta, or Europa Revealed, a work written specially for the occasion by Antonio Salieri. The new theater took its name from its location, previously occupied by the church of Santa Maria della Scala, which in turn was named after a Milanese nobleman’s wife, Beatrice della Scala.

These days Milan’s Teatro alla Scala — or “La Scala” for short — is still in operation, although today performances of Salieri operas are not as common as those of his 18th century rival, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

In the 19th century, La Scala was at the center of the golden age of Italian opera, which boasted the greatest works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi.

In August of 1943, 165 years after it opened, La Scala was damaged by Allied bombers as World War II drew to a close. The theater was repaired and reopened in 1946 with a series of gala concerts conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

Over 60 years later, the theater was newly refurbished and re-opened in December of 2004 with a gala production of the same Salieri opera written for its original opening 226 years earlier.

Antonio Salieri (1750-1825): Falstaff Overture; London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor; Chandos 9877

American composer John Harbison was born in 1938, and so, as a young lad, grew up at the tail end of the Golden Age of radio and the big band Era of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers, and Benny Goodman.

“Over the radio came sounds played by bands in hotels and ballrooms, now distant memories that seemed to a seventh-grade, small town, late-night listener like the pulse of giant imagined cities,” he wrote.

Decades later, he translated those early musical memories into a three-movement composition for a big band orchestra. “These sounds, layered with real experience of some of their places of origin, magnified, distorted, idealized and destabilized, came into contact with other sounds, some of recent origin, and resulted in a celebratory, menacing suite I titled Three City Blocks,” he recalled.

The U.S. Air Force Band gave the premiere performance of Three City Blocks on today’s date in 1993. And, keeping in the spirit of the old days when every major hotel could boast its own dance band, Harbison’s Three City Blocks premiered at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

John Harbison (b. 1938): Three City Blocks; New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble; Frank Battisti, conductor; Centaur 2288

Today’s date in 1914 marks the birthday of one of Puerto Rico’s most fascinating composers! Born in Ukraine under the name Yakov Ovcharov, he came to the United States in 1923, changed his name to Jack Delano, and in the 1930s became a photographer for Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In 1941, he was sent to Puerto Rico on a shoot and fell in love with the island. After Pearl Harbor, he was drafted by the Army Air Corps to film U.S. forces in the South Pacific, but in 1946 returned to Puerto Rico to stay.

Delano then started writing music incorporating Puerto Rican folk material, and even works performed by the island’s symphony orchestra.

In his spare time he was also a notable cartoonist, poet, professor, architectural designer and founder of Puerto Rico’s first publicly funded educational television station. In 1951, he directed Los Peloteros, a movie about poor rural kids’ love of baseball which became a classic of Puerto Rican cinema, and he composed its film score as well — why are we not surprised?

As they would say on the island, Jack Delano was chévere — a quite remarkable fellow!

Jack Delano (1914-1997): “Allegretto Grazioso” from Sonatina; Duo Classico; Suellen Hershman, flute; David Witten, piano; Musical Heritage Society; MM-512502

On today’s date in 1892, The Washington Post’s headlines included one that read: “Sousa’s farewell toot — last appearance of the Marine Band under his baton — admirers of the popular conductor crowd forward for a farewell shake of the hand at the close of his final concert on the White House grounds.”

In his 12-year tenure with the Marine Band, Sousa had made it one of the finest touring ensembles in his day. He was famous coast-to-coast — but not all that well paid. While on tour early in 1892, he had been approached in Chicago by an impresario with a business proposition: “Why not form your own band, Mr. Sousa? I can offer you four times your Marine Corps salary, plus a percentage of the new band’s profits.” He thought it over, and upon his return to Washington, D.C., submitted his resignation effective July 31, 1892. His final concerts with the Marine Band took place on July 29 and 30 that year.

With that, one important chapter of his musical career had ended, but another was just beginning. Over the next four decades, the Sousa Band would go on to become famous worldwide.

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932): Manhattan Beach; Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, conductor; Reference 94

On today’s date in 1950, the Michigan All-Star Band, under the direction of Dale Harris, gave the premiere performance of a new work, George Washington Bridge at Interlochen Summer Music Camp. This music was written by American composer William Schuman, who was experiencing an especially creative period in the early 1950s. Schuman was living in New Rochelle, New York, but as president of the Juilliard School, spent much of his time in Manhattan, and, as Schuman explained:

“There are few days in the year when I do not see the George Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods, depending on the time of day or night, the weather, and, of course, my own mood as I pass by … I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday … It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or dramatic entry to the great metropolis.”

The piece is in ABCBA form — a little like the rising and falling arch of a suspension bridge, in fact, and, since its 1950 premiere at Interlochen, Schuman’s George Washington Bridge has won a secure place as a classic of the wind band repertory.

William Schuman (1910-1992): George Washington Bridge; Rutgers Wind Ensemble; William Bertz, conductor; Naxos 572230

On today’s date in 1962, the Symphony No. 5 for strings, by German-born American composer Gene Gutchë, received its premiere performance at Chatauqua, New York.

Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutchë was born in Berlin in 1907. His father, a well-to-do European businessman, was not amused by the notion of his son “wasting” his time on music, even though famous Berlin-based composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni confirmed the young man’s talent. So he ran away from home, abandoning any hope of a sizeable inheritance in the process, and came to America.

He studied at the Universities of Minnesota and Iowa, and, in 1950, at 43, produced his first symphony. He would go on to compose six symphonies in all, plus an hour-long symphonic work for chorus and orchestra, Akhenaten, premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1983. For most of his life, despite fellowships and commissions, Gutchë lived modestly with his wife, Marion, in a cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

He died in the fall of 2001 — one year after this Cincinnati Symphony recording of his Symphony No. 5 was reissued on compact disc.

Gene Gutchë (1907-2001): Symphony No. 5; Cincinnati Symphony; Max Rudolf, conductor; CRI 825

On today’s date in 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, effectively beginning World War I.

Early in the course of that war, French composer Albéric Magnard became a national hero when he died defending his home against invading German troops. Maurice Ravel tried to enlist as a French pilot but was refused because of his poor health. Instead, he became a truck driver stationed at the Verdun front. British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams was too old to be drafted, but he enlisted as a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Another British composer, George Butterworth, would be killed by a sniper during the Battle of the Somme.

Austrian violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler served briefly in the Austrian Army in 1914 before being wounded and honorably discharged. He arrived in then-neutral New York on November of 1914 and remained in America through the war years.

In 1915, Kreisler made a recording of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, performing with the Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist. Austria and Russian may have been at war in Europe, but in a cramped New Jersey recording studio, at least, the music of Bach provided a brief island of peace and harmony.

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Double Concerto (recorded 1915); Fritz Kreisler, Efrem Zimbalist, violins; string quartet; Buddulph CD 21/22

Alfred Hitchcock’s cold war spy film Torn Curtain, opened in New York Theaters on today’s date in 1966. It was the swinging 60s, and Hitchcock had asked his long-time collaborator, composer Bernard Hermann, for a pop score that would be “with it” with a possible hit single as a main title. What Hitch did not want was, as he put it, “more Richard Strauss.” Hermann assured Hitch he knew exactly what was required — and then ignored him completely.

Herrmann thought Torn Curtain was a dangerously weak film, and one that needed a huge symphonic score with an eerie choir of massed flutes and ominous, oppressive brass to make it effective. When Hitch heard a Hollywood studio orchestra rehearsing the main title music, he fired the composer on the spot and called in someone else to score the film.

Herrmann was crushed. He had thought that Hitch should have been grateful. “You call in the doctor to make you healthy, not to make you rich!” he later quipped. Hermann may well have right. Torn Curtain is regarded as one of Hitchcock’s lamest efforts, while Herrmann’s rejected score has gone on to be recorded and admired on its own.

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): Unused Torn Curtain film score; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 62700

On today’s date in 1882, the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera Parsifal took place at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria. In the audience was 25-year-old American Gustav Kobbé, an ardent opera fan who would go on to write Kobbé’s Complete Opera Book, a standard reference work on the subject.

As he watched the opening scene of Parsifal, his gaze became fixed on one spot of the painted scenery, depicting a pile of rocks. Was that Wagner’s face painted on one of the rocks? Or was that Wagner himself, staring out at the singers on stage? During the intermission, he asked others if they had seen what he had, but they just looked at him as if the heat of the Bavarian summer had affected the young American’s brain.

But after the opera he asked one of the singers, who was surprised at his sharp eyesight — but confirmed what he saw. To ensure that singers followed his specific directions where to stand and when to move, Wagner had, in fact, been standing on stage amid the painted rocks. To all eyes but Kobbé’s, Wagner’s craggy, sun-tanned face had blended in perfectly with the painted scenery.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Act I excerpt from Parsifal; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; James Levine, conductor; DG 437 501