Composers Datebook

American Public Media
  • 5.0（2）
  • 音楽史
  • アップデート：毎日

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. 18時間前

    Well-travelled Zwilich

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1988, the New York Philharmonic gave a concert in a city then called Leningrad and in a country then called the Soviet Union. For their visit to the city we now call St. Petersburg in a country known today as Russia, the Philharmonic commissioned a new work by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Her Symbolon received its premiere performance there, and, in fact, was first American symphonic work to be premiered in the USSR. “The word ‘symbolon’ comes from the Greek and refers to the ancient custom whereby two parties broke a piece of pottery in two, each party retaining half. Each half (or symbolon) thus became a token of friendship. From the beginning, I knew this piece would receive its first performance in the Soviet Union, and I found this profoundly moving. I’m sure my complex feelings, embracing both hope and sadness about the state of the political world, found their way into this work,” she explained. After its premiere, Zwilich’s Symbolon was performed in Moscow, New York, London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris and the former East Berlin, making it one of Zwilich’s “most-travelled” works. Music Played in Today's Program Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Symbolon; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor; New World CD

    2分

  2. 1日前

    Melinda Wagner's Pulitzer premiere

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1998, in Purchase, New York, the Westchester Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new flute concerto by 41-year old composer Melinda Wagner. Her concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999 — a gratifying mark of recognition for Wagner, who claims she had developed 20 years of calluses from all the rejections that are the common experience of most young composers in America. Along with the bumps and scrapes, Wagner had picked up a number of other honors along the way, including awards, grants, and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, to name just a few. “Composition is like writing a kind of love letter to performers. They will be interpreting something that is incredibly personal, so it feels like a love affair. As for the audience, to try to try to second-guess them to figure out what they’re going to like, and write that, would be an insult to them. I just hope they can plug into the communication that’s happening between the performers and me,” she said. Music Played in Today's Program Melinda Wagner (b. 1957): Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion; Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute; Westchester Philharmonic; Mark Mandarano, conductor; Bridge 9098

    2分

  3. 2日前

    Bach arrives (literally)

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach began his formal duties as the new Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, a city that would remain his home for the next 27 years. A newspaper item datelined Leipzig had appeared the previous day, noting: “This past Saturday at noon, four wagons loaded with household goods arrived here from Cöthen; they belonged to the former Princely Cappelmeister Johann Sebastian Bach, now called to Leipzig as Cantor. He himself arrived with his family on two carriages at 2:00 and moved into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School.” Bach was not the first choice for the appointment, and it’s clear from the proceedings of the Leipzig Town Council that they were more concerned with Bach as a teacher rather than Bach as a composer. Providing quality music for services at St. Thomas Church might have been foremost in Bach’s mind, but the council seemed to think that was definitely not as important as teaching Latin to the young students of the St. Thomas School. One council member, a certain Dr. Steger, after reluctantly voting for Bach, even wanted it on record that in his opinion, “Bach should make compositions that were not theatrical.” It’s not on record what poor Dr. Steger thought of Bach’s intensely dramatic St. Matthew Passion, or the hundreds of brilliant crafted cantatas that Bach would provide, week in and week out, for the next 20 years. Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 73; Leonhardt Consort; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor; Teldec 44279

    2分

  4. 3日前

    Stravinsky's 'Riot' of Spring?

    Synopsis Today’s date marks the anniversary of one of the most famous — and notorious — premieres in the history of classical music, that of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), in Paris on May 29, 1913. From its first note — sounded by the bassoon at the extreme end of its highest register — Stravinsky’s score signaled the start of something radically different. It’s also remembered as the occasion of one of the most emotional reactions by any audience: catcalls and insults were hurled between the composer’s supporters and detractors, fistfights broke out and finally the police were called. There were those, including Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the premiere, who felt the reactions were occasioned more by the dancing and the stage picture than by the music itself. Years later, when Monteux was asked what he thought of the original production, he confessed to everyone’s amusement that he actually never saw it, because his eyes were glued to the score. “On hearing this near riot behind me, I decided to keep the orchestra together at any cost … I did, and we played it to the end absolutely as we had rehearsed it in the peace of an empty theatre,” he wrote. Music Played in Today's Program Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): The Rite of Spring; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Georg Solti, conductor; London 436 469

    2分

  5. 4日前

    The Hindemith case

    Synopsis On today's date in 1938, Matthias the Painter, an opera by the German composer Paul Hindemith, had its premiere performance in Zurich, Switzerland. This work had been scheduled to be premiered in 1934 at the Berlin Opera by the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, but the newly-installed Nazi regime canceled the performance. In protest, Furtwangler performed a concert suite from Hindemith’s opera at a Berlin Philharmonic concert, resulting in a loud pro-Hindemith demonstration on the part of the audience. The Nazi press responded with attacks on both Hindemith and Furtwangler. By the end of 1934 it was clear to all in Germany that the Nazis would brook no opposition when it came to cultural matters. So how had the quintessentially German Hindemith offended the new regime? In 1929 Hitler had attended the premiere of another Hindemith opera, News of the Day, and hated it — labeling it “degenerate.” Furthermore, his wife and many of his closest musician friends were Jewish. Hindemith became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, and, shortly after the Zurich premiere of his new opera, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Tanglewood and Yale, becoming an American citizen in 1946. Music Played in Today's Program Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Mathis der Maler; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; EMI 55237

    2分

  6. 5日前

    David Wilde's 'The Cellist of Sarajevo'

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1992, during the bloody civil wars that shattered the former Yugoslavia, a hand grenade was thrown into the midst of a bread line in Sarajevo. Twenty-two people died. To most around the world, it appeared to be just one more senseless act of violence amidst the thousands of such acts took place in that unhappy part of the world. One Sarajevo resident thought otherwise. At 4 p.m. every day after the incident, despite the danger, Vedran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo Opera, went to the site of the bombing in full evening dress and played his cello in memory of the dead. A New York Times reporter wrote of the cellist’s moving act of courage and faith in art and humanity — and the world took notice. English-born composer David Wilde read about the cellist while riding a train in Germany. “As I sat in the train, deeply moved, I listened; and somewhere deep within me a cello began to play a circular melody like a lament without end,” he later recalled. That theme developed into The Cellist of Sarajevo, a piece dedicated to Vedran Smailovic, and which cellist Yo-Yo Ma was soon performing around the world. Music Played in Today's Program David Wilde (1935-2025): The Cellist of Sarajevo; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Sony 64114

    2分

  7. 6日前

    John Rutter at Carnegie Hall

    Synopsis For many years now MidAmerica Productions has been organizing concerts in New York City and enlisting choral ensembles from the U.S. and abroad to come to the Big Apple to perform at prestigious Manhattan venues. On today’s date in 1990, choirs from Arkansas, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas were on stage at Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of John Rutter’s Magnificat, specially commissioned by MidAmerica, and with the British composer himself on hand to conduct. “The chorus numbered over 200 voices, every one of them happy and excited at the prospect of joining forces in the magnificent setting of Carnegie Hall … [so] I wanted to write something joyous because that would reflect the mood of the performers … the Magnifcat is known as the Canticle of the Blessed Virgin, and it is mainly in the sunny southern countries — Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico — that Mary is most celebrated … this led me to conceive the music as a bright, Latin-flavored fiesta,” he recalled. Despite composing and conducting religious music, Rutter confessed during a 2003 interview that he was not particularly religious — just a composer deeply moved and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers. Music Played in Today's Program John Rutter (b. 1945): Magnificat; Elizabeth Cragg, soprano; Choirs of St. Albans Cathedral; Ensemble DeChorum; Andrew Lucas, conductor; Naxos 8.572653

    2分

  8. 5月25日

    A belated Webern premiere

    Synopsis This lush, late-Romantic score, composed in 1904, had to wait until 1962 for its premiere performance, when, on today’s date that year, the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy performed it in Seattle during an international festival devoted to its composer, Anton Webern. For most music lovers, the Austrian composer is a shadowy, vaguely mysterious figure. If they know anything at all about him, it is that he was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, that he wrote a small body of short, condensed atonal scores, and that in 1945 he was shot by accident by an American soldier in the tense days following the end of World War II. The early orchestral score that received its belated premiere on today’s date in 1962, In the Summer Wind, was completed when Webern was just 19. It’s very much in the style of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and early Schoenberg. To earn a living, Webern worked as a conductor of everything from Viennese operettas to worker’s choral unions. His conducting career came to a halt when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, and until his untimely death in 1945, Webern lived by doing routine work for a Viennese music publisher. Music Played in Today's Program Anton von Webern (1883-1945): Im Sommerwind; Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; London 436 240

    2分
すべて見る（28）

評価とレビュー

5
5段階評価中
2件の評価

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
    10年 - 26年
  • エピソード
    28
  • 制限指定
    不適切な内容を含まない
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Minnesota Public Radio
  • 番組のWebサイト
    Composers Datebook

American Public Mediaの他の作品

その他のおすすめ