Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1962, Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky returned to his homeland for the first time in nearly half a century. When he left in 1914, Czar Nicholas was still on the throne. By 1962, a lot had changed. For starters, his music had been severely criticized in the Soviet Union. Tikhon Khrennikov, first secretary of the Soviet Composers’ Union, branded Stravinsky “the apostle of reactionary forces in bourgeois music.” Dimtri Shostakovich had condemned “the unwholesome influence of Stravinsky” and his “complete divorce from the true demands of our time.”

Whether Khrennikov or Shostakovich really believed this, or merely parroted the official party line, is debatable. But his return to Russia proved a profoundly emotional experience for all concerned. The 80-year-old composer reconnected with old friends he had not seen in 50 years and relatives he had never met. And, yes, he even met with Khrennikov and Shostakovich.

Stravinsky led the Moscow Symphony in his Symphonic Ode and Orpheus Ballet. Robert Craft, his American assistant, then led the orchestra in his revolutionary Rite of Spring — all to thunderous applause. For an encore, he returned to conduct a quintessentially Russian score: his own 1917 arrangement of the Volga Boatmen’s Song.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Ode; Cleveland Orchestra; Oliver Knussen, conductor; DG 4843064

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere of a new opera by Jack Beeson, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines. As if to prove that everything is “up-to-date” in Kansas City, even before this world premiere, this Missouri company could boast a long tradition of staging contemporary operas by American composers.

Captain Jinks was the sixth of some 10 operas composed by Jack Beeson, who was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921. He blames the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera for his catching the opera bug.

“When I was about 12, the Met started regularly broadcasting on Saturday afternoons, and I was seduced. With what spending money I had, I bought scores, and I would place the score up on the piano, and with a little radio on the piano and a big radio across the room, I would accompany the Met,” he said.

Some of Beeson’s other operas include The Sweet Bye and Bye from 1957, Lizzie Borden from 1965 and Sorry, Wrong Number from 1999. He also taught for many years at Columbia University in New York City, mentoring hundreds of his composition students.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jack Beeson (1921-2010): Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines; Kansas City Lyric Theatre; Russell Patterson, conductor; TROY 1149/50

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

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

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)