Composers Datebook

American Public Media
  • 4.8 (12)
  • 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.

  1. 15h ago

    Vaughan Williams at Westminster

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years. The previous such event had been for the 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell — whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in the Abbey’s north choir aisle, should you wish to pay your respects. He had left instructions for which music was to be played: his anthem “O Taste and See” and also his setting of the hymn, “All People that on Earth do Dwell,” written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place at Westminster Abbey just five years earlier, in 1953. The service was broadcast live by the BBC, and the announcer noted that if all the submitted requests to attend had have been honored, the Abbey would have been filled twice over. Music Played in Today's Program Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): “O Taste and See” and “All People that on Earth do Dwell” (arr. of “Old 100th”); The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, conductor; Collegium 107 Ralph Vaughan Williams (arr.): “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” (Old 100th) Christ Church Cathedral Choir; English Orchestra; Stephen Darlington, conductor; Nimbus 5166

  2. 1d ago

    Elgar's Fifth

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, British composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5, the last in this popular series. Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him. In 1930, Elgar was 73 and liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given him some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, he got the idea for the musical themes of his new march on a drive through the countryside with a friend. He suddenly asked for something on which he could jot down his ideas. All the driver could produce was a road map of Worcestershire — so on its margins the first notes of his new score were scribbled. The march proved to be one of his last new orchestral works. He had planned to write a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, a kind of soldier’s funeral march, he said, but he died in 1934. Music Played in Today's Program Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; Philips 454 250

  3. 2d ago

    Sierra's 'La Salsa'

    Synopsis The Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads — and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well. For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download. Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, La Salsa, turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and his native Puerto Rico for its basic materials, referencing riffs and rhythmic patterns familiar to salsa dancers for the work’s outer movements, with a slow second movement in habañera form. “Puerto Rican music, especially salsa and folkloric music, has been in my compositional DNA. The vitality of the rhythms and the unique way in which melodic structure merge with the rhythms has inspired me to the present day. I always remember with nostalgia my childhood experiences in the Puerto Rican countryside, and these feelings of longing are also present in my work,” he said. Music Played in Today's Program Roberto Sierra (b. 1953): Sinfonia No. 3 (La Salsa); Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Delfs, conductor; MSO Classics MSO11 (digital download)

  4. 3d ago

    Shostakovich on Broadway?

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London. Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two, was called the Tahiti Trot. Late in 1927, on a dare from conductor Nikolai Malko, 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated his Tahiti Trot into his new ballet, The Age of Gold. Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided that the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting, “Only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society.” In other words, “Nyet, Nyet!” to “Nanette!” Music Played in Today's Program Vincent Youmans (1898-1946): No, No Nanette Overture; Broadway cast album; Columbia 30563

  5. 4d ago

    Gisela Hernández

    Synopsis Today’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández. She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and promoted concerts of Cuban music. In 1949, she formed and directed a Women’s Choir and was named professor of harmony, music history, pedagogy and composition at the National Music Conservatory in Havana. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista of composers who incorporated Afro-Cuban traditions into their music. Hernández wrote pieces for solo piano and chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral works. She is also credited with being one of the first, and most important composers of Cuban art songs. She died in 1971 at 59, and her music is only recently becoming better known outside of Cuba. Music Played in Today's Program Gisela Hernández (1912-1971): Cubanas for Piano: No. 3, Guajira; Juana Zayas, piano; Music & Arts MACD-1069

  6. 5d ago

    Tan Dun and Beethoven – in (and out) of China

    Synopsis On this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms and American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the first time an American orchestra had performed in Communist China. The orchestra was invited to China following the famous visit of President and Mrs. Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger. In the audience for one of these historic concerts was a young student of traditional Chinese music, Tan Dun. When he heard the Philadelphians perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, a work he had never heard before, he decided then and there to become a composer. In 1986, he came to New York City, and since then has managed to combine elements of East and West into his own musical works. In 1987, for example, he composed a violin concerto Out of Peking Opera, which draws on both Chinese and European traditions. In addition to prestigious awards and commissions from major foundations and orchestras, in March of 2001, Dun won an Oscar for his film score to the Ang Lee film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Music Played in Today's Program Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; René Leibowitz, conductor; Chesky 17 Tan Dun (b. 1957): Out of Peking Opera; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Helsinki Philharmonic; Muhai Tang, conductor; Ondine 864

  7. 6d ago

    Copland counts to 12

    Synopsis On today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, Inscape, was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Copland said the work’s title, Inscape, was borrowed from 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its compositional technique was borrowed from the serial or 12-tone models of Arnold Schoenberg and the some of the late works of one of his favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky. Bernstein was no great fan of 12-tone music, but he exclaimed following the premiere, “Aaron, it’s amazing how, even when you compose in a completely foreign idiom, the music still comes out sounding like you!” Beyond the technical challenge involved, Inscapes, said Copland, reflected what he called “the tenseness of the times in which we live.” His experiments with 12-tone pieces like Inscape didn’t impress the avant-garde composers of the day, and only baffled audiences who expected him to produce more works in the style of his popular ballet scores of the 1930s and 40s. By 1970, he stopped composing altogether, and claimed not to miss it very much. “I must have expressed myself sufficiently,” he said. Music Played in Today's Program Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Inscape; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 47236

  8. Sep 12

    A serenata by Vivaldi

    Synopsis For decades many of the 20th century’s greatest composers routinely visited Venice’s famous canals and churches during a biennial music festival that showcased brand-new works by the likes of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten and others. French composer Darius Milhaud describes sharing space with several of his composer-colleagues in a cramped Festival “green room.” “It was a normal sight to see Stravinsky’s rain-coat and Constant Lambert’s tweed overcoat hanging near my two walking sticks,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, Italian composer Hildebrando Pizetti would be putting up a mirror, opening a silver toilet-case, and arranging flowers, his wife’s photograph and a sheaf of telegrams.” On today’s date in 1937, he conducted the first performance of his Suite Provencale at the Venice Festival. This jaunty score proved to be one of his most popular orchestral works. In 1954, it was Leonard Bernstein’s turn. In Venice on today’s date that year, he conducted the premiere performance of his Serenade for violin and orchestra, with Isaac Stern the featured soloist. Despite its admirable track record for picking winners, the Venice Festival shut down operations in 1973, although its impact lives on in the number of modern masterworks it helped launch in its day. Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Suite Provençale; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 7031 Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium); Zino Francescatti, violin; NY Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60559

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About

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.

Information

  • Creator
    American Public Media
  • Years Active
    2010 - 2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Minnesota Public Radio
  • Show Website
    Composers Datebook

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