Composers Datebook American Public Media

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1791 Mozart’s sixth child, christened Franz Xaver, was born in Vienna. Mozart nicknamed the new arrival “Wowi” and everyone said the baby was the spitting image of papa, even down to the distinctive Mozart ears. The baby’s mother, Constanze, claimed her husband predicted the child would become a musician when he noticed that it cried in tune with the music he was playing on the piano. Of Mozart’s six children, only two survived: Franz Xaver and his older brother Carl Thomas, who had no interest in music.

Franz Xaver, however, did become a composer and performer, just as his father predicted. Wolfgang Mozart died shortly after Franz Xaver was born, so Constanze enlisted the aid of Haydn, Salieri, and Hummel, as the young boy’s teachers.

Franz Xaver Mozart made his concert debut in 1805, and Constanze billed her son professionally as “Wolfgang Mozart II.” Franz Xaver toured widely, but eventually settled in Lemberg, where he remained for almost 30 years before returning to his native Vienna. Although his own music was well received, contemporaries realized Franz Xaver’s talent would never match his famous father’s. When he died in Karlsbad in 1844, his father’s Requiem Mass was sung at his funeral.

Music Played in Today's Program
Franz Xaver Mozart (1791-1844): Piano Concerto No. 1; Klaus Hellwig, piano; Cologne Radio Symphony; Roland Bader, conductor; Koch-Schwann 311004

Synopsis
In July 1936, this notice concerning an upcoming Hollywood Bowl concert appeared in The Los Angeles Times: “William Grant Still will conduct two of his own works.” The nonchalance of the paper’s music and dance critic overlooked the fact that the occasion marked the first time that an African-American conductor would lead a major American orchestra.

On the second half of that July concert in Los Angeles, Still conducted his orchestral piece The Land of Romance, and the “Scherzo” from his Afro-American Symphony. The entire symphony had been premiered in 1931 by the Rochester Philharmonic — another landmark event, being the first time a symphonic work by an African-American composer was performed by an American orchestra.

Meanwhile, at a 1947 outdoor concert in Philadelphia, composer and pianist Duke Ellington joined forces with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra to play his A New World A-Comin’, marking Ellington’s first appearance with a symphony orchestra. It wouldn’t be his last.

In 1963, The Symphonic Ellington appeared, an album featuring Ellington and his band in recordings of original compositions recorded in Europe with symphony orchestras from Paris, Stockholm, Hamburg, and the Orchestra of La Scala in Milan.  

Music Played in Today's Program
Duke Ellington (1899-1974) (arr. Peress): New World A-Comin’; Sir Roland Hanna, piano; American Composers Orchestra; Maurice Peress, conductor; MusicMasters 7011

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1938, a new opera by 74-year-old German composer Richard Strauss premiered at the Munich National Theater. It was titled Friedenstag or Peace Day — a rather ironic title, considering that World War II was imminent.

The opera takes place during the Thirty Years War in 17th century Germany. The military commander of a besieged town decides to blow the whole place up rather than surrender and is about to do so when he misinterprets a signal and opens the gates, allowing a peaceful takeover. The surprised commander is reconciled to his enemy, and everyone celebrates their deliverance from the horrors of war.

Hitler did not attend the Munich premiere, and supposedly thought the historical peace following the Thirty Years War a disaster for Germany. But the opera could be interpreted many ways, and, after the “peaceful” takeover of Austria by Nazi Germany, Hitler did in fact attend the Viennese premiere of Peace Day in 1939.

The new opera played in other German opera houses briefly, but after the outbreak of war was quickly dropped. And to this day, depending on whom you ask, Strauss’ ambiguous opera is either a work celebrating peace — or appeasement.

Music Played in Today's Program
Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Friedenstag; Bavarian Radio Symphony; Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; EMI 56850

Synopsis
Today is National Hot Dog Day, but we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the non-grill variety, namely the Weiner dog or dachshund, a breed beloved of some famous composers and performers.

Leonard Bernstein was passionate about the many dachshund he owned, all named Henry, and once on a flight to Paris, booked a seat for a furry passenger named Henry Bernstein.

When composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears moved into their house in Aldeburgh, the brick wall surrounding the property soon sported signs in English, German, and Latin, warning “Beware of the Dog,” “Bisseger Hund,” and “Caveat Canem,” lest passersby ankles be savaged by their classically-named dachshunds, Klithe and Jove.  Britten’s friend and frequent collaborator, the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, also a dachshund owner, presented Britten and Pears with an additional warning sign in Russian.

We’re told Rostropovich’s miniature, long-haired dachshund, Pooks, upon command, would play the piano with its front paws, then, after the humans’ appreciative applause died down, would walk up and down the keyboard as an encore. “Pooks” even gets a shout-out in Slava!, Leonard Bernstein’s short orchestral tribute to Rostropovich — at one point in the score members of the orchestra are invited call out the talented dog’s name.

Music Played in Today's Program
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Slava! A Political Overture; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Naxos 8.559813

Synopsis
The Latin word “juvenilia” is used for works produced in an artist’s youth. Sometimes, as in the case of Mozart or Mendelssohn, these early works are still worth hearing. Other composer’s juvenilia, such as the early, bombastic concert overtures of Richard Wagner, are seldom granted more than one hearing — if that.

Take his “Columbus” Overture; most musicologists — and modern audiences — have decided the title is probably the best thing about that work of the 20-something Wagner.

But persistence pays, and some years later, on today’s date in 1844, a 31-year-old Wagner conducted the premiere in Dresden of an overture he wrote that still shows up occasionally on concert programs today. A Faust Overture was originally conceived as the first movement of a Faust symphony Wagner never got around to completing.

In his autobiography, Wagner claimed Beethoven as a principal influence, but to modern ears it’s apparent that Wagner had been studying scores by his slightly older French contemporary, Hector Berlioz. Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet Symphony, in particular, seems to have impressed Wagner at the time, and so Wagner’s orchestra recounts the Faust legend with just the slightest hint of a French accent.

Music Played in Today's Program
Richard Wagner (1813-1883): A Faust Overture; Philadelphia Orchestra; Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; EMI 56165

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1838, the crew of American ship Otis, docked at a harbor in Venezuela, discovered that one of their passengers had died in his cabin. He was the German inventor and one-time business associate of Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel.

Maelzel was born in Regensburg in 1772, the son of an organ builder. Perhaps a childhood spent among the inner workings of pipe organs predisposed him to become an inventor of mechanical instruments. At 20, Maelzel moved to Vienna, and began peddling mechanical organs that could play short tunes by Haydn and Mozart on demand.

Maelzel didn’t stop there: he invented entire mechanical orchestras and other wonders for display in a museum he opened in 1812. Beethoven even composed Wellington’s Victory, a piece for Maelzel’s mechanical orchestra. The two collaborators soon fell out over who owned what, and Beethoven re-orchestrated Wellington’s Victory for human performers.

Maelzel took his contraptions on tour and spent a good deal of his later life exhibiting them in the United States and the West Indies. Today, Maelzel’s musical inventions are regarded as obsolete curios — with one exception: he’s credited with finessing and popularizing the use of the metronome.

Music Played in Today's Program
Franz Haydn (1732-1809): Flute Clock Pieces; mechanical Flute Clock c. 1800; Candide 31093 (out-of-print LP recording)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Wellington’s Victory; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 453 713