Synopsis

Today, some “off-the-cuff” remarks about the role of shirt cuffs in music history.

Starched, button-on, detachable cuffs for men’s shirts were very popular from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, and could serve as a sort of white linen Post-It note if a melody suddenly popped into the head of a composer. Like Dvořák, say, out for a walk along the Turkey River in Spillville, Iowa — he could scribble the tune down on his shirt cuff, assuming he carried a pencil, that is, since writing it in ink before the era of ballpoint pens would not be very practical and certainly not be very popular with whoever did the composer’s laundry!

Years after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 had its premiere — on today’s date in 1912 — the Danish composer still recalled the moment when a theme in its third movement came to him.

“I was standing on the back of a tram. And [the theme] came with such urgency that I had to quickly jot it down, partly on a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, and partly on one of my shirt cuffs,” Nielsen said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931): Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva); New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor; Dacapo 220623