On today’s date in 1918, this celebratory music opened the first program of the newly-formed Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. It’s the “American Fantasy” of the Dublin-born American composer Victor Herbert.

Cleveland had reason to celebrate. World War I had ended exactly one month earlier, and, for some time, organizers in that city had been working to build a home-town orchestra. In December of 1918, Father John Powers of St. Ann’s Church in Cleveland wanted to give a concert to raise some money for his parish, and, as Father Powers also happened to be a fine Irish tenor, offered to perform on the same bill as the new orchestra, just in case the untried ensemble of 54 didn’t prove to be a sufficient box-office attraction.

So, along with Father Power’s songs and Victor Herbert’s “American Fantasy,” conductor Nikolai Solokoff lead the Cleveland Orchestra in their first performances of Bizet’s “Carmen” Suite, Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, Liadov’s tone poem “The Enchanted Lake,” and, for a rousing closer, Liszt’s tone poem “Les Preludes.”

In the course of its subsequent history, the Cleveland Orchestra would establish itself as one of America’s “top five” orchestras under the leadership of famous conductors such as Arthur Rodzinski, Erich Leinsdorf, George Szell, Pierre Boulez, Lorin Maazel, and Christoph von Dohnanyi.

And, since this is the COMPOSER’s Datebook, we should mention that the Cleveland Orchestra has premiered an impressive number of new works by both American and European composers.