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Composers Datebook: Daily Summaries Delivered
by American Public Media
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
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- Today2 min
Captain Jinks
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere of a new opera by Jack Beeson, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. As if to prove that everything is “up-to-date” in Kansas City, even before this world premiere, this Missouri company could boast a long tradition of staging contemporary operas by American composers. Captain Jinks was the sixth of some 10 operas composed by Jack Beeson, who was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921. He blames the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera for his catching the opera bug. “When I was about 12, the Met started regularly broadcasting on Saturday afternoons, and I was seduced. With what spending money I had, I bought scores, and I would place the score up on the piano, and with a little radio on the piano and a big radio across the room, I would accompany the Met,” he said. Some of Beeson’s other operas include The Sweet Bye and Bye from 1957, Lizzie Borden from 1965 and Sorry, Wrong Number from 1999. He also taught for many years at Columbia University in New York City, mentoring hundreds of his composition students.Music Played in Today's ProgramJack Beeson (1921-2010): Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines; Kansas City Lyric Theatre; Russell Patterson, conductor; TROY 1149/50
- Yesterday2 min
Vaughan Williams at Westminster
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years.The previous such event had been for the 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell — whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in the Abbey’s north choir aisle, should you wish to pay your respects.He had left instructions for which music was to be played: his anthem “O Taste and See” and also his setting of the hymn, “All People that on Earth do Dwell,” written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place at Westminster Abbey just five years earlier, in 1953.The service was broadcast live by the BBC, and the announcer noted that if all the submitted requests to attend had have been honored, the Abbey would have been filled twice over.Music Played in Today's ProgramRalph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): “O Taste and See” and “All People that on Earth do Dwell” (arr. of “Old 100th”); The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, conductor; Collegium 107Ralph Vaughan Williams (arr.): “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” (Old 100th) Christ Church Cathedral Choir; English Orchestra; Stephen Darlington, conductor; Nimbus 5166
- 2 days ago2 min
Elgar's Fifth
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, British composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5, the last in this popular series.Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him.In 1930, Elgar was 73 and liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given him some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, he got the idea for the musical themes of his new march on a drive through the countryside with a friend. He suddenly asked for something on which he could jot down his ideas. All the driver could produce was a road map of Worcestershire — so on its margins the first notes of his new score were scribbled.The march proved to be one of his last new orchestral works. He had planned to write a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, a kind of soldier’s funeral march, he said, but he died in 1934.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward Elgar (1857-1934): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; Philips 454 250
- 3 days ago2 min
Sierra's 'La Salsa'
SynopsisThe Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads — and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well.For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download. Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, La Salsa, turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and his native Puerto Rico for its basic materials, referencing riffs and rhythmic patterns familiar to salsa dancers for the work’s outer movements, with a slow second movement in habañera form.“Puerto Rican music, especially salsa and folkloric music, has been in my compositional DNA. The vitality of the rhythms and the unique way in which melodic structure merge with the rhythms has inspired me to the present day. I always remember with nostalgia my childhood experiences in the Puerto Rican countryside, and these feelings of longing are also present in my work,” he said. Music Played in Today's ProgramRoberto Sierra (b. 1953): Sinfonia No. 3 (La Salsa); Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Delfs, conductor; MSO Classics MSO11 (digital download)
- 4 days ago2 min
Shostakovich on Broadway?
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London.Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two, was called the Tahiti Trot.Late in 1927, on a dare from conductor Nikolai Malko, 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated his Tahiti Trot into his new ballet, The Age of Gold.Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided that the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting, “Only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society.”In other words, “Nyet, Nyet!” to “Nanette!”Music Played in Today's ProgramVincent Youmans (1898-1946): No, No Nanette Overture; Broadway cast album; Columbia 30563
- 5 days ago2 min
Gisela Hernández
SynopsisToday’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández. She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and promoted concerts of Cuban music. In 1949, she formed and directed a Women’s Choir and was named professor of harmony, music history, pedagogy and composition at the National Music Conservatory in Havana. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista of composers who incorporated Afro-Cuban traditions into their music.Hernández wrote pieces for solo piano and chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral works. She is also credited with being one of the first, and most important composers of Cuban art songs. She died in 1971 at 59, and her music is only recently becoming better known outside of Cuba.Music Played in Today's ProgramGisela Hernández (1912-1971): Cubanas for Piano: No. 3, Guajira; Juana Zayas, piano; Music & Arts MACD-1069
- 6 days ago2 min
Tan Dun and Beethoven – in (and out) of China
SynopsisOn this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms and American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the first time an American orchestra had performed in Communist China. The orchestra was invited to China following the famous visit of President and Mrs. Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger.In the audience for one of these historic concerts was a young student of traditional Chinese music, Tan Dun. When he heard the Philadelphians perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, a work he had never heard before, he decided then and there to become a composer. In 1986, he came to New York City, and since then has managed to combine elements of East and West into his own musical works.In 1987, for example, he composed a violin concerto Out of Peking Opera, which draws on both Chinese and European traditions. In addition to prestigious awards and commissions from major foundations and orchestras, in March of 2001, Dun won an Oscar for his film score to the Ang Lee film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; René Leibowitz, conductor; Chesky 17Tan Dun (b. 1957): Out of Peking Opera; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Helsinki Philharmonic; Muhai Tang, conductor; Ondine 864
- 1 weeks ago2 min
Copland counts to 12
SynopsisOn today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, Inscape, was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.Copland said the work’s title, Inscape, was borrowed from 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its compositional technique was borrowed from the serial or 12-tone models of Arnold Schoenberg and the some of the late works of one of his favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky. Bernstein was no great fan of 12-tone music, but he exclaimed following the premiere, “Aaron, it’s amazing how, even when you compose in a completely foreign idiom, the music still comes out sounding like you!”Beyond the technical challenge involved, Inscapes, said Copland, reflected what he called “the tenseness of the times in which we live.”His experiments with 12-tone pieces like Inscape didn’t impress the avant-garde composers of the day, and only baffled audiences who expected him to produce more works in the style of his popular ballet scores of the 1930s and 40s.By 1970, he stopped composing altogether, and claimed not to miss it very much. “I must have expressed myself sufficiently,” he said.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Inscape; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 47236
About Composers Datebook
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
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