30 episódios

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.

Composers Datebook American Public Media

    • Música

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.

    Beethoven's 10th?

    Beethoven's 10th?

    Synopsis
    On today’s date in 1827, Ludwig van Beethoven dictated and signed a letter in which he mentions “a new symphony, which lies already sketched in my desk.” This new work would have been Beethoven’s 10th Symphony.

    But in March 1827, Beethoven was ill and his friends feared the worst. Even so, he seemed optimistic that he could finish a new symphony as a thank you for the Philharmonic Society of London. The society had recently sent him 100 pounds in the hopes it would ease his sickbed, and Beethoven was touched by their kindness.

    “I will compose a grand symphony for them,” he told visitors.

    But eight days later Beethoven died, and for the next 150 years most people disputed that he had in fact sketched out such a new symphony. It wasn’t until the 1960s that scholars started sorting through his sketchbooks and not until the 1980s that evidence surfaced to prove it.

    British Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper went so far as to assemble a performing version of Beethoven’s sketches for the first movement of his 10th Symphony. Appropriately enough, as Beethoven intended his new symphony for a British premiere, the first recording of Cooper’s reconstruction was made by the London Symphony.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 10 (arr. Barry Cooper); London Symphony; Wyn Morris, cond. MCA 6269

    • 2 min
    Handel and 'The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba'

    Handel and 'The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba'

    Synopsis
    One of Handel’s “greatest hits” had its premiere on today’s date in 1749 at London’s Covent Garden Theatre, as part of his new biblical oratorio, Solomon.

    The text of Handel’s oratorio praises the legendary Hebrew king’s piety in Part 1, his wisdom in Part 2 and the splendor of his royal court in Part 3.

    As the instrumental introduction to the third part of Solomon, Handel composed a jaunty sinfonia he titled “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.” In the Book of Kings, the Queen of Sheba travels from afar to visit the splendid court of King Solomon, arriving, as the Bible puts it, “with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, very much gold, and precious stones.”

    Handel’s music admirably captures the excitement of a lavish state visit of an exotic foreign queen, and first-night London audiences would have had no problem reading into Handel’s depiction of an elaborate compliment of their reigning monarch, King George II.

    Speaking of reigning monarchs, at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, Handel’s Sinfonia was used to accompany a video of James Bond (played by Daniel Craig) arriving at Buckingham Palace, where 007 was received by Queen Elizabeth II.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    George Frederic Handel (1685-1757): excerpt from ‘Solomon’; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, cond. Philips 412 612

    • 2 min
    The morning after for Sergei Rachmaninoff

    The morning after for Sergei Rachmaninoff

    Synopsis
    In St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1897, the First Symphony of Sergei Rachmaninoff had its disastrous premiere.

    Now, there are bad reviews and then there are really bad reviews. When Rachmaninoff opened up a newspaper the next day he read, “If there were conservatory in hell, and if one of its students were instructed to write a symphony based on the seven plagues of Egypt, and if he were to compose a symphony like Rachmaninoff's, he would have fulfilled his task brilliantly and delighted the inmates of hell.”

    Ouch!

    What must have really hurt was that the review was written by a fellow composer, Cesare Cui, and the premiere was conducted — poorly, it seems — by another composer colleague, Alexander Glazunov.

    The whole affair was so painful that Rachmaninoff needed therapy before he could compose again, and when he left Russia for good in 1917, he left the symphony’s manuscript behind, and in the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution it was lost. However, the original orchestral parts for the 1897 premiere survived. They were rediscovered in 1945, two years after Rachmaninoff’s death, and a belated — and this time successful — second performance took place that same year.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Symphony No. 1; St. Petersburg Philharmonic; Mariss Jansons, cond. EMI 56754

    • 2 min
    Roman's 'Musica de Palladium'

    Roman's 'Musica de Palladium'

    Synopsis
    The Palladium Ballroom once stood at the corner of 53rd Street and Broadway in New York City. It opened on today’s date in 1946, and in its heyday, was the mambo capital of the world, showcasing performances by Latin superstars like Tito Puente, Tito Rodríguez and Machito.

    The Palladium closed in 1966, but its dance floor and bandstand were re-created for the 1992 film The Mambo Kings, in which Puente plays himself.

    The spirit of the Palladium was also evoked in a more recent chamber work by Puerto Rican composer Dan Román. Fascinated by both the music of contemporary minimalist composers and the popular dance forms of Puerto Rico, he combines the two in his four-movement work Musica de Palladium for violin, viola, cello and piano.

    The work’s final movement, “Sensacional,” is, according to Román, “a collage of aural images taken from mambos and other dance music of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodríguez.”

    Musica de Palladium was written for the New World Trio and recorded by them, joined by violist Steve Larson.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    Dan Román (b. 1974): ‘Musica de Palladium’; New World Trio (Annie Trepanier, vn; Carlynn Savot, vcl; Pi-Hsun Shih, p); Steve Larson, vla. innova CD 904

    • 2 min
    Johann Strauss the Elder

    Johann Strauss the Elder

    Synopsis
    Johann Strauss the Elder, patriarch of the famous waltz dynasty, was born in Vienna on this day in 1804. His music became immensely popular across Europe, and he dreamed of — but never realized — a tour of America.

    At the height of his fame, Strauss visited Britain, providing music for the state ball on the occasion of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. His waltz Homage to the Queen of England, quotes Rule, Britannia at its start and God Save the Queen — in waltz tempo, of course — for its finale. The Times reported that in this case, Victoria was amused, as were her subjects. In the spring and summer of 1838, the Strauss orchestra gave 79 performances in London alone.

    Unfortunately, back home, Strauss was something of a cad. He abandoned his wife and his three talented musical children, Josef, Eduard and Johann Jr. for a mistress with whom he started a new family. He died at 45 of scarlet fever, contracted from one of his illegitimate children.

    Strauss wrote about 300 works, the most famous being his Radetzky March, the obligatory clap-along selection on every Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s Day Concert.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    Johann Strauss Jr. (1827-1870): ‘Radetzky March’; Cincinnati Pops Orchestra; Erich Kunzel, cond. Vox 5132

    • 2 min
    Terence Blanchard's birthday

    Terence Blanchard's birthday

    Synopsis
    Today’s date in 1962 marks the birthday in New Orleans of Terence Blanchard, American jazz trumpeter, composer and educator.

    “I come from a family of musicians,” Blanchard says. “My father was an opera singer, my mother played piano and taught voice, my grandfather played the guitar. What I wanted was to be a jazz musician, have a band, travel and create music.”

    Well, he got his wish! Blanchard started piano at 5 and trumpet at 8, playing music with childhood friends Wynton and Branford Marsalis at summer music camps and studied composition with their father, Ellis Marsalis. In 1980, while still in his teens, Blanchard began performing with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and later Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.

    In the 1990s, Blanchard started writing film and TV scores and has composed more than 40 of them to date. In 2019, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his music for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman.

    He holds major teaching positions and tours with his quintet, the E-Collective. In 2021, his opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera.

    Music Played in Today's Program
    Terence Blanchard (b. 1962): ‘Ron’s Theme,’ from BlacKkKlansman Suite; the E-Collective, with a 96-piece orchestra Back Lot Music CD 779

    • 2 min

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