Composers Datebook American Public Media

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1965, the first complete performance of American composer Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4 took place in New York.

38 years earlier, in 1927, also in New York, British conductor Eugene Goossens had performed the first two movements of Ives’ Fourth Symphony, after many a sleepless night trying to figure out how to perform certain sections of Ives’ score where the bar-lines didn’t jibe — parts where more than one rhythm pattern happened simultaneously.

“I remember,” Goosens said, “that I wound up beating two with my stick, three with my left hand, something else with my head, and something else again with my coat tails.”

For the 1965 premiere and first recording of Ives’ complete symphony, Leopold Stokowski solved this problem by enlisting the aid of two assistant conductors, David Katz and Jose Serebrier — all three men working simultaneously at times to cue the musicians in the trickiest passages of the score.

One of conductors who assisted Stokowski in 1965, José Serebrier, went on to recorded Ives’ Fourth again — this time without the aid of assistant conductors, coat tails, or the surgical addition of another set of arms.

Music Played in Today's Program
Charles Ives (1874-1954): Symphony No. 4; Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel, conductor; DG 4839505

José Serebrier (b. 1938): Symphony No. 2 (‘Partita’) London Philharmonic; José Serebrier, conductor; Reference 90

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1926, Giacomo Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, had its belated premiere at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, with Arturo Toscanini conducting. The originally scheduled 1925 premiere had to be postponed, as Puccini had died in November 1924, leaving Turandot unfinished.

Another Italian composer, Franco Alfano, was brought in to complete the opera based on Puccini’s sketches. It’s said that after showing Toscanini his completion, Alfano asked, “What do you have to say, Maestro?”

Toscanini replied, “I say I see Puccini’s ghost coming to punch me in the nose.”

On opening night, Toscanini stopped the performance at the point that Puccini had ceased composing and left the podium in tears — a touching act of homage to Puccini, perhaps, but also a vote of “no confidence” regarding Alfano’s completion of the beloved master’s score.

Although well received by critics, the Puccini Turandot with Alfano’s ending remained less popular than other Puccini operas for decades. After a run of performances in the late 1920s when the opera was still new, Turandot remained unperformed at the Metropolitan Opera until 1961, when Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli scored a huge success in a lavish Franco Zeffirelli revival production.

Music Played in Today's Program
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Nessun dorma, from Turandot; Academy of St Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; EMI 49552

Synopsis
Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons had its premiere performance on this date in Vienna in 1801. Like its predecessor, The Creation, Haydn’s new oratorio was a great success, and, as before, Haydn received help with the text and a lot of advice from the versatile Gottfried Bernhard Baron van Swieten, an enthusiastic admirer of Handel oratorios and the music of J.S. Bach.

Swieten’s text for The Seasons included many opportunities for baroque-style “tone painting” — musical representations of everything from croaking frogs and workers toiling in the fields, sections that raised a lot of smiles in 1801 and still do today. Haydn, famous for his sense of humor, in this case humored the old-fashioned tastes of the Baron as well.

Speaking of the text, since Haydn was tremendous popular in England, Baron van Swieten prepared an English-language version of his text, trying to fit the English words to the rhythm of his original German. Alas, the good Baron’s command of English was, to put it diplomatically, perhaps not as firm he imagined. So these days, ensembles wishing to perform Haydn’s oratorio have a choice: they can opt for Swieten’s quaint-but-clunky English version, or his more graceful German original.

Music Played in Today's Program
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Ländler, from The Seasons; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Philips 438715

Synopsis
On this date in 1948, the ballet Fall River Legend was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House by the Ballet Theatre of New York. The choreography was by Agnes de Mille, and the music by Morton Gould.

The previous year, de Mille and Gould had met at the Russian Tea Room to discuss their ballet, a retelling of the true story of Lizzie Borden, acquitted for the gruesome ax murders of her father and stepmother.

Both de Mille and Gould thought Borden must have been guilty as charged.

“Well, what shall we do about that?” asked de Mille.

“Hang her!” said Gould, adding that in any case, it would be easier for him to write hanging music than acquittal music.

So, with that large dollop of poetic license, de Mille and Gould came up with the scenario for a ballet that opens with Lizzie standing before the gallows.

Morton Gould was known for his ability to blend folk music, jazz, gospel, blues and other elements into lively, colorful orchestral works. He was also a noted conductor, with over one hundred recordings to his credit — including a classic RCA Living Stereo recording of the Suite he arranged from his Fall River Legend ballet.

Music Played in Today's Program
Morton Gould (1913-1996): Fall River Legend; New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; James Sedares, conductor; Koch 7181

Synopsis
In the biographical film Maestro, Leonard Bernstein’s dramatic 1943 Carnegie Hall debut conducting the New York Philharmonic, filling in at the last moment for Bruno Walter, receives a masterful cinematic treatment.But the first time Bernstein wielded a baton in public took place on today’s date in 1939, when Lenny was still a student at Harvard and conducted his own incidental music for a student performance of the ancient Greek comedy, The Birds, by Aristophanes.The play was performed in the original Greek, and since almost no one in the audience would understand what was being said, the production relied on visual, slapstick comedy and Bernstein’s electric music to bring the ancient text to life. Bernstein’s score referenced everything from sitar music to the blues to get the humor across. The student production was a surprise smash hit. Aaron Copland and Walter Piston were in the audience, and photos even appeared in Life magazine.Bernstein recycled one of his bluesy songs from The Birds into his 1944 musical On the Town, but the rest of the 1939 score was never published, and only revived in 1999 for a performance by the EOS Orchestra in New York, and to date has never been recorded.

Music Played in Today's Program
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): On the Town: Three Dance Episodes; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 42263

Synopsis
On today’s date in 1862, an 18-year-old Russian named Nicolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov graduated as midshipman from the Russian Naval Academy and prepared for a two-year’s training cruise around the world. His uncle was an admiral and a close friend of the Czar, and in his autobiography Rimsky-Korsakov admits he, too, at first thought it might be a good idea — he loved reading travel books, after all.

But then Rimsky-Korsakov was seduced by music. He’d made the acquaintance of eminent Russian composers of his day, lost interest in a naval career, and dreamed of composing music himself.

The young midshipman’s tour of duty did enable him to hear a lot of it and to sample opera performances in London and New York. But what made the biggest impression on the budding composer was the sky below the equator.

“Wonderful days and nights,” he wrote. “The marvelous dark-azure of the day would be replaced by a fantastic phosphorescent night. The tropical night sky over the ocean is the most amazing thing in the world.”

It’s perhaps not too fanciful to believe that such impressions helped Rimsky-Korsakov develop into one of the most inventive and masterful painters of symphonic colors and instrumental effects.

Music Played in Today's Program
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Prelude (A Hymn to Nature), from The Invisible City of Kitezh; Scottish National Orchestra, Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 8327