Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1976, an unusual opera premiered at the Théatre Municipale in Avignon, France. It ran for five hours with no breaks between acts. The audience was invited to wander in and out as it pleased. The libretto consisted of numbers, solfege syllables and some cryptic poems written by a pupil from a New York School for Disturbed Children. Even the title of this new opera, Einstein on the Beach, was unusual, suggesting something at once serious and surreal.

In the opera, a violinist dressed up like Albert Einstein wanders in and out of some scenes, a reference to the fact that, in real life, the famous physicist was also a talented amateur violinist. Einstein on the Beach was collaboration between two Americans: composer Philip Glass and set designer Robert Wilson. It made the rounds in Europe, attracted a great deal of attention, and came to America in November of 1976 for two sold-out performances in New York staged at the Metropolitan Opera with Glass and his ensemble.

Its music was even referenced as a kind of “in joke” during a famous TV commercial in which Einstein debates the merits of Coke vs. Pepsi. For the record, Albert chooses Pepsi.

Philip Glass (b. 1937): Violin Solo from Einstein on the Beach; Gregroy Fulkerson, violin; New World 80313

The composer of this familiar theme was born on today’s date in 1904 in Lyon, France. He was christened Noel Arnaud, but is better known as Leo Arnaud, the name he adopted after emigrating to the United States. He studied music in his native France with two of its leading composers, Vincent d’Indy and Maurice Ravel. In the 1930s, Arnaud settled in Hollywood, where he churned out scores for everything from Blondie Goes Latin to The Ice Follies of 1939. The high point of his cinematic career was an Oscar nomination for his work as an arranger for the 1964 musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown.

Some years earlier, Hollywood Bowl conductor Felix Slatkin commissioned Arnaud to write some music for a 1958 LP sonic spectacular designed to show off the new “stereophonic” recording process. The album was titled Charge! and featured military style fanfares and suites, including Bugler’s Dream.

In 1968, when ABC television was looking for a musical theme for its Olympic coverage, it chose Bugler’s Dream. By 1988, when the NBC network secured TV rights for the Olympics, Arnaud’s theme had become the instantly recognizable signature theme for the games.

Leo Arnaud (1904-1991): Olympic Theme; Cleveland Symphonic Winds; Frederick Fennell, conductor; Telarc 80099

On today’s date in 1757, Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti died in Madrid. He was 71, and for the last 38 years of his life was employed at the court of Princess Maria Barbara, first in her native Portugal, and then, when the princess married the heir to the Spanish throne, in Madrid.

Although Domenico could very well have stayed in Italy and become a famous opera composer like his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico spent the better part of his life composing over 600 virtuoso sonatas for Maria Barbara. Only a handful of these were published during his lifetime. In the 19th century, Liszt and Brahms took the trouble to hunt down additional Scarlatti sonatas in manuscript, but the bulk of them remained unpublished and unknown until a complete edition was published in the 20th century.

While not coming anywhere close to matching Scarlatti’s output, one 20th century American composer, Philadelphia-born Vincent Persichetti, composed ten harpsichord sonatas of his own.

The growing number of modern-day harpsichordists has meant that in addition to the wealth of old music for the instrument, many contemporary composers have followed Persichetti’s example, and are writing new works for this old instrument.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757): Sonata in C Minor; Elaine Comparone, harpsichord; Laurel 838

Vincent Pershichetti (1915-1987): Sonata No. 4; Elaine Comparone, harpsichord; Laurel 838

On today’s date in 1847, Giuseppe Verdi conducted the premiere performance of his newest opera, I Masnadieri or The Robbers, at Her Majesty’s Theater in London. And speaking of her Majesty, Queen Victoria was in the audience, as were other state dignitaries, including the Duke of Wellington and Louis Napoleon of France.

It was the first time in over twenty years that a world-famous composer had composed an opera specifically for London. As one of Verdi’s young assistants put it, “Neither Rossini, Bellini, or Donizetti had ever pitched their tents on the banks of the Thames.”

As an added attraction, 27-year old Swedish soprano, Jenny Lind, topped an all-star line-up of singers. It was Lind’s London debut and the first time ever that an operatic role had been specially written for her.

The premiere was a great success for all concerned, with Verdi and the singers called to the stage again and again to cheers from the audience. The critics, for their part, were less than kind. “We take this to be the worst opera that has been given in your time at Her Majesty’s Theater. There does not exist an Italian composer more incapable of producing what is commonly called melody,” wrote one.

I Masnadieri fared a little better back in Italy, but gradually faded from the active repertory until the revival of interest in all of Verdi’s opera in the 20th century.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): I Masnadieri Overture; Hungarian State Opera Orchestra; Iper Giorgio Morandi, conductor; Naxos 8.554077

In London on today’s date in 1938, the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo presented Nobilissima Visione, a work by German composer Paul Hindemith based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The idea may have been suggested by his wife, who had recently converted to Catholicism. The Hindemiths had visited the Church of Santa Croce in Florence were deeply impressed by its frescoes depicting scenes from the life of St. Francis. He originally intended to incorporate melodies by 14th-century French composer Machaut into his ballet but ended up writing original themes in an archaic style. As a staged ballet or as a concert suite, Nobilissima Visione proved to be one of his most popular works.

“My ballet is not an eye-catcher in the old style. It is not exactly full of sparkling wit, but all the same it makes a fine impression, with all the trappings of success that a composer greedy for recognition could wish. Even the earthshaking impresario Sol Hurok was so impressed that he pressed me to his smart businessman’s heart and is insisting on my conducting the piece myself in New York and surrounding villages,” Hindemith wrote in 1938.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Nobilissima Visione; San Francisco Symphony; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor; London 433 809

Today a tip of the hat to a much-beleaguered and frequently unacknowledged species: the piano teacher. Do you, for example, remember the name of your first piano teacher?

In the case of Duke Ellington, it was not a name one could easily forget. She was a certain Mrs. Clinkscales, and Ellington always gave her credit for her persistence. “Because of my enthusiasm for playing ball and racing through the street, I missed more lessons than I took. When she had her piano recital with all her pupils, I was the only one who could not play his part. So Mrs. Clinkscales had to play the treble, and I just played the umpy-dump bottom!” Ellington wrote.

Avant-garde American composer Morton Feldman immortalized the name of his piano teacher in an elegiac chamber piece, Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety. This music was premiered in France on today’s date in 1970. Madame Maurina Press had taught the children of the Czar and knew the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. She started teaching Feldman when he was twelve, and his tribute to her is scored for 12 instruments — with the piano conspicuous by its absence!

Morton Feldman (1926-1987): Madame Press died last week at 90; Orchestra of St. Luke’s; John Adams, conductor; Nonesuch 79249

During WWII, German troops encircled Leningrad for 900 days, a siege that caused immense suffering for that city’s residents. One of them, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, appeared on the cover of a July 1942 issue of TIME magazine, grim-faced and wearing the helmet of a Leningrad fireman.

The publicity was for the American premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad), as a live NBC Symphony radio broadcast on today’s date in 1942. The broadcast was dedicated to the Russian War Relief, and the NBC announcer explained how the score of the recently-completed symphony had been flown from the Soviet Union to the West via Teheran.

Two famous conductors, Leopold Stokowski and Arturo Toscanini, had been hotly contesting who would conduct the American premiere. The older conductor pulled rank. “Don’t you think, my dear Stokowski, it would be interesting to hear the old Italian conductor play this work of a young Russian anti-Nazi composer?” Toscanini wrote.

Friends of Shostakovich later suggested he may have had more than just the Nazis on his mind and quote him as saying: “Fascism is not simply National Socialism. This is music about terror, slavery, and oppression of the spirit.”

Dimtri Shostakovich (1906-1976): Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad); NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor; RCA Toscanini Edition Vol. 22

Today we pay tribute to Pauline Viardot-Garcia, born in Paris on today’s date in 1821. Her father was Manuel Garcia, the tenor for whom Rossini had written the role of Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. Her older sister was legendary operatic diva Maria Malibran, a famous interpreter of operas by Bellini and Donizetti.

Little Pauline wanted to be a piano virtuoso and took lessons from Liszt, but at 15, her mother decided she, too, should become a singer. Chopin adored her voice, and together they arranged some of his mazurkas as songs. Meyerbeer and Gounod wrote operatic roles for her.

In 1860, with the composer at the piano croaking out the tenor part of Tristan, Viardot-Garcia sang the role of Isolde at the first private reading of music from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and it was she who gave the premiere performance of Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody in 1870.

She married Louis Viardot, the director of the Theatre Italien in Paris, and at their home one was just as likely to meet Charles Dickens or Henry James as Berlioz or Tchaikovsky. She was also a composer of songs and chamber operas, which are receiving renewed attention.

Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910): 12 Poems by Pushkin, Fet and Turgenev: No. 12: Les Étoiles; Laetitia Grimaldi, soprano; Ammiel Bushakevitz, piano; Bis 2546

On today’s date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival that included works by Mozart and others, including two living composers of that day, 44-year-old Brahms and 64-year-old Wagner.

The Philharmonic would return to Salzburg six more times for mini-festivals through 1910, some led by composer-conductors like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.

In 1925, an annual Salzburg Festival was established, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as the main musical participants. World War II disrupted the festival in the 1940s, but soon after it reestablished itself among the most prestigious of international musical happenings.

Traditionally, a familiar brass fanfare opens each Salzburg Festival radio broadcast, but probably few music lovers know the name of its composer.

It was written by Joseph Messner, who wrote over 700 works. He was born in 1893 in the Austrian Tyrol and died in 1969 in a village near Salzburg, where he had served as church organist, conductor and composer for decades, leading many Festival concerts featuring sacred music by Mozart and others.

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Menuetto and Trio from Haffner Symphony; Vienna Philharmonic; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; Seraphim 68531

Joseph Messner (1893-1969): Salzburg Festival Fanfare; Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra; Ivor Bolton, conductor; Oehmns CD 734

Today we note the birthday of a remarkable composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist: Eugéne Ysaÿe, who was born in Liége, Belgium, on today’s date in 1858. After studies with two of the most famous violin composers of his day, Henyrk Wieniawski of Poland and his Belgian compatriot, Henri Vieuxtemps, he soon was touring Europe and Russia as a star performer himself.

In 1886, when 28-year old Ysaÿe married, great Belgian composer Cesar Franck presented the young couple with his Violin Sonata as a wedding present. That same year, Ysaÿe founded a famous string quartet, and in 1893 it was the Ysaÿe Quartet that gave the premiere performance of Claude Debussy’s String Quartet, a work its composer dedicated to the ensemble in admiration.

In 1918, he made his American debut as a conductor with the Cincinnati Symphony, and made such a great impression there that he remained as music director of the Cincinnati Symphony from 1918 to 1922.

As a composer, he wrote eight concertos and a set of six solo sonatas for the violin. In 1928, at 70, the patriotic Belgian began work on an opera, Peter the Miner to a libretto in his native Walloon language, and was at work on a second opera when he died at 72, in 1931. In 1937, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium inaugurated the annual Eugene Ysaÿe International Prize for promising young violinists.

Cesar Franck (1822-1890): Violin Sonata; Itzhak Perlman, violin; Martha Argerich, piano; EMI 56815

Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931): Chant d’hiver; Aaron Rosand, violin; Radio Luxembourg Orchestra; Louis de Froment, conductor; Vox Box 5102