Composers Datebook

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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.

  1. 13時間前

    Quincy Jones and 'The Color Purple'

    Synopsis Any movie buff knows composer John Williams is the usual choice for director Steven Spielberg. But for The Color Purple, which was released on today’s date in 1985, Spielberg turned to jazz great and master orchestrator Quincy Jones. The Color Purple was based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker that tells the story of Celie Harris, graphically depicting the trauma of a young African-American woman during the early 20th century. Spielberg cast Whoopi Goldberg — better-known then for stand-up comedy — in the intensely dramatic role of Celie. For Spielberg, it was a movie without dazzling special effects or space aliens; for Jones, who had just finished producing Michael Jackson’s Thriller, working on The Color Purple was, as he put it, “An amazing experience … the biggest of my life.” Whoopi Goldberg was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress — Quincy Jones, for both Best Original Score and Best Original Song. Neither Goldberg nor Jones won an Oscar, but Jones says he felt honored to participate in a project that, despite the many warnings of nay-sayers, he had absolute faith in, inspired by the passion of all those involved in its making. Music Played in Today's Program Quincy Jones (1933-2024): The Color Purple: Main Theme; Itzhak Perlman, violin; Pittsburgh Symphony; John Williams, conductor; Sony 63005

    2分

  2. 1日前

    Brahms makes his debut

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1853, expectations both on stage and off must have been high when a 20-year-old German pianist and composer named Johannes Brahms made his public debut in Leipzig. Just two months earlier, the older composer Robert Schumann had published a glowing prediction that young Brahms was going to turn out to be the bright hope for the future of German music. Brahms played his big Piano Sonata No. 1, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. He also met great French composer Hector Berlioz, who wrote, “Brahms has had a great success here and made a deep impression on me ... this diffident, audacious young man who has taken into his head to make a new music.” When his Piano Sonata No. 1 was first published by Breitkopf & Haertel, along with some early songs, Brahms immediately sent copies off to Schumann, with this note: “I take the liberty of sending you your first foster children (who owe to you their citizenship of the world). In their new garb they seem to me too prim and embarrassed — I still cannot accustom myself to seeing these guileless children of nature in their smart new clothes!” Music Played in Today's Program Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Piano Sonata No. 1; Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Philips 438 477

    2分

  3. 2日前

    Prokofiev in Chicago

    Synopsis In the spring and summer of 1921, Sergei Prokofiev was living in a quiet village on the coast of Brittany. He wrote, “I get up at 8:30, put on a collarless shirt, white pants, and sandals. After drinking hot chocolate, I look to see if the garden is still where it’s supposed to be. Then I sit down to work. I’m writing my Piano Concerto No. 3.” On today’s date in 1921, Prokofiev was the soloist in the premiere of the new work, which took place in America, with the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock. In a letter written to conductor Serge Koussevitzky before the premiere, Prokofiev wrote, “My third concerto has turned out to be devilishly difficult. I’m nervous and practicing hard three hours a day. But let the maestro be calm — there are no complicated meters, no dirty tricks. It can be conducted without special preparation — it is difficult for the orchestra, but not for the conductor.” Chicago audiences and newspaper critics gave the new concerto a warm, if not overly enthusiastic, reception at its first performance in America, and in time, the Piano Concerto No. 3 — despite its difficulty — became one of Prokofiev’s most popular works with performers as well as audiences around the world. Music Played in Today's Program Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953): Piano Concerto No. 3; Alexander Toradze, piano; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Philips 462 048

    2分

  4. 3日前

    Bloch's American concerto

    Synopsis Swiss-born American composer Ernest Bloch was born in 1880 and was in his 30s when he first came to America, where he achieved remarkable success with both critics and audiences. His most famous work, Schelomo, subtitled Hebraic Rhapsody for cello and orchestra, premiered in New York in 1917. Despite his popularity in America, Bloch returned to Europe for most of the 1930s. By the end of that decade, the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Germany and Italy led the Jewish composer, then approaching 60, to reconsider making America his permanent home. Bloch’s Violin Concerto premiered in America on today’s date in 1938, a month after he arrived, with violinist Joseph Szigeti and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. The main theme of Bloch’s concerto was supposedly based on a Native American theme, but the tone of the whole work echoes the Hebrew themes in his other music. Bloch wrote: “Art for me is an expression, an experience of life, not a game or an icy demonstration of mathematical principles. In not one of my works have I tried to be ‘original’ or ‘modern.’ My sole desire and single effort has been to remain faithful to my vision.” Music Played in Today's Program Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): Violin Concerto; Oleh Krysa, violin; Malmo Symphony; Sakari Oramo, conductor; BIS 639

    2分

  5. 4日前

    Tsfasman's 'Jazz Suite'

    Synopsis Today’s date in 1906 marks the birthday of Alexander Naumovich Tsfasman, a Ukrainian composer from pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia who would become an important figure in Soviet jazz. Jazz first came to the Soviet Union in 1922, four years after Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution, and at first was welcomed as the music of the oppressed African-American minority, and therefore considered an expression of the worldwide class struggle. Tsfasman encountered jazz while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory and formed his own jazz band in 1926, the first to be heard on Soviet radio. In the decades that followed, Tsfasman made over 140 records, composed music for films, and gave concerts during WWII for Red Army soldiers. But after 1945, jazz fell out of favor in the USSR. During the Cold War, it came to be seen as a prime export of the decadent bourgeois West and performances were limited. “Today he plays jazz, tomorrow he’ll betray his country” was a widespread propaganda slogan in the Stalinist post-war USSR. Only in the 1960s did attitudes change, and we’re happy to report Alexander Tsfasman lived to see it before his death in 1971. This music is from his Jazz Suite for piano and orchestra. Music Played in Today's Program Alexander Tsfasman (1906-1971): Snowflakes and Polka (excerpts), from Jazz Suite;Zlata Chochieva, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony; Karl-Heinz Steffens, conductor; Naïve V-8448

    2分

  6. 5日前

    Barber in Rome

    Synopsis In 1935, when he was 25 years old, American composer Samuel Barber was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome. This meant that Barber could study at the American Academy in Rome for two years, with free lodgings and an annual stipend of $1,400 — a considerable sum of money in the 1930s. Barber found his Italian studio, a little yellow house approached through a garden, to be a good place to work. While in Italy, Barber finished his Symphony No. 1. The premiere took place in Rome on today’s date in 1936, with an Italian conductor and orchestra. Years later, he recalled that the orchestra played well, but also that the Italian audience members were “not shy about expressing their feelings ... 50% applauded and 50% were hissing.” In Barber’s opinion, the Italians found the new work “too dark-toned, too Nordic.” The Cleveland Orchestra gave the symphony’s American premiere early the next year, followed by a New York performance under the direction of Arthur Rodzinski, who was so impressed he conducted the work with the Vienna Philharmonic at the opening concert of the 1937 Salzburg Music Festival in Austria. That performance was more warmly received, and Barber was called back to the stage three times. Music Played in Today's Program Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Symphony No. 1; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; RCA/BMG 60732

    2分

  7. 6日前

    Henry Brant

    Synopsis On today’s date in 2001, the San Francisco Symphony, under conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, gave the first performance of Ice Field, a new work by American composer Henry Brant. The piece was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2002, the year Brant turned 89. The prize was an acknowledgment of five decades of Brant’s work as one of America’s great experimental composers. In the 1950s, when he turned 40, Brant became fascinated with the possibilities inherent in spatial music — music that positioned various groups of performers in all the corners of performing space. Moreover, he felt his music should reflect a wide variety of musical styles. As Brant put it, “I had come to feel that single-style music… could no longer evoke the new stresses, layered insanities and multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit.” Brant cites earlier American composer Charles Ives as his major model, but also credits the experience of hearing extravagant French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz’ Requiem Mass in Paris. In the 19th century, Berlioz positioned an orchestra, brass choirs, and vocalists around a vast cathedral for a unique “surround sound” experience. Music Played in Today's Program Henry Brant (1913-2008): Western Springs; La Jolla Symphony and Chorus; Henry Brant, et. al. conductor; CRI 827

    2分

  8. 12月11日

    Cowell at the Forum

    Synopsis The Great Depression put many Americans out of work, and in 1935 the Roosevelt administration created the Works Progress Administration, offering employment on various public projects. The Federal Music Project created 34 new orchestras across the country. American composers weren’t neglected either. A program called the Composers Forum Laboratories showcased new chamber works and invited audiences to offer their feedback directly to the composers involved. On today’s date in 1935, at the seventh Composers Forum Laboratory held in New York, Henry Cowell was the featured composer and took questions and comments following the premiere of his String Quartet No. 3. Typical of this “laboratory” situation, the chamber piece was highly experimental. Cowell conceived it as a kind of musical kaleidoscope or crazy quilt, in which five predetermined musical patterns can be played in any order. Cowell called this work his Mosaic Quartet, and, theoretically, no two performances would ever be the same. America’s entry into World War II eventually brought all the WPA’s musical projects to a close, but not before Federal Music Project orchestras had premiered a number of new symphonic works by American composers and dozens of new chamber works, like Cowell’s Quartet, and had been workshopped at Composers Forum Laboratories. Music Played in Today's Program Henry Cowell (1897-1965): String Quartet No. 3 (Mosaic Quartet); Colorado String Quartet; Mode 72/73

    2分
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番組について

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.

情報

  • クリエイター
    American Public Media
  • 配信期間
    07年 - 24年
  • エピソード
    35
  • 制限指定
    不適切な内容を含まない
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024 Minnesota Public Radio

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