Composers Datebook

American Public Media

0.0 (0)
Music History
Updated daily

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.

14 hr ago

Louis Ballard

Synopsis Today’s date in 1931 marks the birthday of the first notable Native American composer of concert music. His name was Louis Ballard, and he was born in Devil’s Promenade in Oklahoma. His father was Cherokee, and his mother Quapaw. As a young boy he attended — but managed not to be irreparably damaged by — one of the notorious boarding schools where Native American students were taught to forget everything about their own language and culture. He remained rooted in Quapaw language and traditions at the same time his interest in European classical music developed, and in 1962 became first American Indian to receive a graduate degree in music composition. Inspired by the example of Bela Bartok, who incorporated the folk music of Eastern Europe in his works, Ballard attempted to do the same with Native American source material in concert works both large and small. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1971 and in 1974 his orchestral piece Incident at Wounded Knee was performed at Carnegie Hall and taken on an Eastern European tour by Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, who had commissioned the work. Music Played in Today's Program Louis Ballard (1931-2007): Mid-Winter Fires; Amy Morris, flute; Mark Serrup, oboe; Mary Goetz, piano; Indande Records 52352

2 min
1 day ago

Handel celebrates peace

Synopsis Unless you’re just mad about 18th century history, it’s unlikely you know off the top of your head who the winners and losers were in the War of the Spanish Succession. Suffice it to say, on today’s date in 1713, to celebrate the successful resolution of that conflict, a festive choral Te Deum was performed at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It was written by ambitious 28-year old German composer, George Friedrich Handel. We’re not sure if Handel wrote his Utrecht Te Deum in response to an invitation from the British royal family or wrote it “on spec” to win their favor. In any case, when performed by the Royal Musicians and the choir of the Chapel Royal on July 7, 1713, it made a tremendous impression. Handel’s first royal employer was King George the First, and three years after Handel’s death, King George III sat on the throne. Now, King George may have suffered from madness and lost the American colonies, but at least he did know a good composer when he heard one. He idolized Handel and saw to it that the composer was buried in Westminster Abbey. Music Played in Today's Program George Frederic Handel (1685-1757): Utrecht Te Deum; St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir; The Parley of Instruments; John Scott, conductor; Hyperion 67009

2 min
2 days ago

Louis Armstrong and American music

Synopsis On today’s date in 1971, jazz great Louis Armstrong died in New York City at 69. He was born in New Orleans, and for years, all the standard reference books listed his birthday as the Fourth of July, 1900. Well, it turned out that wonderfully symbolic date was cooked up by his manager Joe Glaser. Armstrong wasn’t sure when he was born, so the Fourth of July seemed as good a date as any, and was accepted as fact for many years. Eventually documents were discovered that proved he was actually born on August 4, 1901. Armstrong earned the nickname “Satchmo,” short for “Satchelmouth,” and in later years he was affectionately dubbed “Pops.” If documentary filmmaker Ken Burns is to be believed, he was the central figure in the development of jazz in the 20th century. British music critic Norman Lebrecht offered this assessment: “Armstrong never bowed his head nor sang from anywhere but the heart. He was a figure of enormous dignity and a musical innovator of universal importance.” Acknowledging his influence in American concert music, composer Libby Larsen subtitled one of her works, a 1990 Piano Concerto, Since Armstrong. Music Played in Today's Program Louis Armstrong (1901-1971): Skip the Gutter; Louis Armstrong and the Hot Five; Columbia 44422; I’m in the Barrel arr. David Jolley; Windscape Arabesque 6732

2 min
3 days ago

Piazzolla passes

Synopsis On today’s date in 1992, lovers of the tango had good reason to be sad. Argentinean composer and bandoneón virtuoso Astor Piazzolla had died in Buenos Aires at the age of 71. The bandoneón is a close relation of the accordion, and for it Piazzolla composed new music inspired by the tango, an Argentinian dance form that originated in working-class dancehalls. While still a teenager, he had played bandoneón in the orchestra of Carlos Gardél, the most famous tango singer of the 1930s. Eventually, he formed his own band, which became famous throughout South America. But Piazzolla had a burning desire to write concert music, and won a scholarship to study composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. She encouraged him to explore the possibilities inherent in the music he knew best, so he set about reinventing the tango. The result was dubbed “nuevo tango,” as vital as the old ones, but often dark and brooding. When asked why these new tangos were so melancholy, he replied, “Not because I’m sad. Not at all. I’m a happy guy … no, my music is sad because the tango is sad — sad and dramatic, but not pessimistic.” Music Played in Today's Program Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992): Tres Minutos con la Realidad; Nestor Marconi, bandoneon; Yo Yo Ma, cello; ensemble; Sony Classical 63122

2 min
4 days ago

The 1812 Overture

Synopsis Weather permitting, there’s a good chance you’ll be attending an outdoor symphonic concert tonight that will close with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, complete with a volley of booming cannon shots, church bells, and dazzling fireworks. It’s become an American tradition to perform the 1812 Overture on July 4, even though it has nothing to do with the 1776 War of Independence — or America’s War of 1812, for that matter. No, it’s all down to Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops. For years, a wealthy American businessman named David Mugar financed an outdoor Pops concert on Boston’s Esplanade on the Fourth of July. But by the mid-1970s, attendance started to decline, so Mugar suggested that if Fiedler would close the annual concert with the 1812 Overture, people might be lured back by the live cannon fire Tchaikovsky asks for in the piece. Well, it worked. Outdoor concerts with the 1812 Overture plus cannons quickly became a tradition, and in 1976, 400,000 people attended the Boston Pops’ outdoor Bicentennial Fourth of July concert — setting a Guinness World Record for best-attended classical concert. And, a year after his death in 2022, a bronze statue of Mugar was unveiled on the Boston Esplanade. Music Played in Today's Program Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): 1812 Overture; Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra; Antal Dorati, conductor; Mercury Living Presence 434360

2 min
5 days ago

Grainger and 'Country Gardens'

Synopsis Country Gardens is the best-known work of Australian-born American composer, arranger, and pianist Percy Grainger. Its score bears this note: “Birthday-gift, Mother, July 3, 1918.” His mother Rose was responsible for his excellent early musical training. In 1918, he arranged a folk tune given to him in 1908 by Cecil Sharp, a major figure in the folklore revival in England. He titled this arrangement Country Gardens, and it went over so well at his recitals that he decided to have it published. It was a big hit and broke sales records. In fact, until his death in 1961, its sales generated a significant portion of Grainger’s annual income. Like other composers with a mega-hit, Grainger came to resent being known for just one tune and would say to audiences: “The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers. It’s more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it”. In 1931, Country Gardens was arranged for wind band by someone other than Grainger, but around 1950, at the special request of a Detroit band director, Grainger prepared his own wind band arrangement, which likewise became a hit. Music Played in Today's Program Percy Grainger (1882-1961): Country Gardens; Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra; Timothy Reynish Chandos 9549

2 min
6 days ago

Lucky Gluck?

Synopsis In German, “Gluck” means “luck,” and today’s date marks the birthday of a German composer named Christoph Willibald Gluck, whose good fortune it was to be credited with reforming the vocally ornate but dramatically static form of Baroque opera. In the 18th century, opera was the biggest and most high-profile of all musical forms, and Gluck wrote 49 of them during his 67 years of life. Like many 18th century opera composers, the stories Gluck chose were often based on ancient Greek myths such as “Orpheus and Eurydice.” It wasn’t the matter of Gluck’s operas that was revolutionary, but the manner in which he set these stories to music. When the British music historian Charles Burney visited Gluck in 1771, he recorded the composer’s own words on the subject. “It was my design to divest music of those abuses which the vanity of singers, or the complacency of composers, had so long disfigured Italian opera and made the most beautiful and magnificent of all public exhibitions into the most tiresome and ridiculous,” said Gluck. To sum it all up, Gluck told Burney, “My first and chief care as a dramatic composer was to aim at a noble simplicity.” Music Played in Today's Program Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787): Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orpheus; Academy of Ancient Music; Christopher Hogwood, conductor; L’Oiseau-Lyre 410553

2 min
1 Jul

Milhaud's 'Scaramouche' Suite

Synopsis On today’s date in 1937, a two-piano suite by French composer Darius Milhaud had its premiere. It was titled Scaramouche, after a stock character in the Italian commedia dell arte, and the music’s upbeat, carefree mood made it an instant hit. For his part, Milhaud was in an apprehensive mood. When he and his wife Madeleine had visited the 1937 Paris International Exposition, they saw premonitions of war reflected in many of its exhibits. “Picasso’s Guernica adorned the walls of the Spanish pavilion, but the Spanish Republic had been murdered. Placed face to face, the German and the Soviet pavilions seemed to challenge each other to mortal combat. One evening, as we watched the sun set behind the flags of all nations, Madeleine clutched my arm in anguish and whispered, ‘This is the end of Europe!’” Milhaud recalled. In 1940, Milhaud was forced to leave France when the Germans occupied Paris and his music was promptly banned due to his Jewish heritage. But in 1943, two French pianists performed Scaramouche in concert, tricking the German censors by listing its composer’s name as Hamid-al-Usurid — a fictitious Arabic composer whose name just happens to be an anagram of Darius Milhaud. Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Scaramouche; Anthony and Joseph Paratore, pianos; Four Winds 3014

2 min

See All (30)

John Birge

Host

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.