Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1988, the New York Philharmonic gave a concert in a city then called Leningrad and in a country then called the Soviet Union.

For their visit to the city we now call St. Petersburg in a country known today as Russia, the Philharmonic commissioned a new work by American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Her Symbolon received its premiere performance there, and, in fact, was first American symphonic work to be premiered in the USSR.

“The word ‘symbolon’ comes from the Greek and refers to the ancient custom whereby two parties broke a piece of pottery in two, each party retaining half. Each half (or symbolon) thus became a token of friendship. From the beginning, I knew this piece would receive its first performance in the Soviet Union, and I found this profoundly moving. I’m sure my complex feelings, embracing both hope and sadness about the state of the political world, found their way into this work,” she explained.

After its premiere, Zwilich’s Symbolon was performed in Moscow, New York, London, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Paris and the former East Berlin, making it one of Zwilich’s “most-travelled” works.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Symbolon; New York Philharmonic; Zubin Mehta, conductor; New World CD

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1998, in Purchase, New York, the Westchester Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new flute concerto by 41-year old composer Melinda Wagner.

Her concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999 — a gratifying mark of recognition for Wagner, who claims she had developed 20 years of calluses from all the rejections that are the common experience of most young composers in America. Along with the bumps and scrapes, Wagner had picked up a number of other honors along the way, including awards, grants, and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, to name just a few.

“Composition is like writing a kind of love letter to performers. They will be interpreting something that is incredibly personal, so it feels like a love affair. As for the audience, to try to try to second-guess them to figure out what they’re going to like, and write that, would be an insult to them. I just hope they can plug into the communication that’s happening between the performers and me,” she said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Melinda Wagner (b. 1957): Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion; Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute; Westchester Philharmonic; Mark Mandarano, conductor; Bridge 9098

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach began his formal duties as the new Cantor of the St. Thomas School in Leipzig, a city that would remain his home for the next 27 years.

A newspaper item datelined Leipzig had appeared the previous day, noting: “This past Saturday at noon, four wagons loaded with household goods arrived here from Cöthen; they belonged to the former Princely Cappelmeister Johann Sebastian Bach, now called to Leipzig as Cantor. He himself arrived with his family on two carriages at 2:00 and moved into the newly renovated apartment in the St. Thomas School.”

Bach was not the first choice for the appointment, and it’s clear from the proceedings of the Leipzig Town Council that they were more concerned with Bach as a teacher rather than Bach as a composer. Providing quality music for services at St. Thomas Church might have been foremost in Bach’s mind, but the council seemed to think that was definitely not as important as teaching Latin to the young students of the St. Thomas School.

One council member, a certain Dr. Steger, after reluctantly voting for Bach, even wanted it on record that in his opinion, “Bach should make compositions that were not theatrical.” It’s not on record what poor Dr. Steger thought of Bach’s intensely dramatic St. Matthew Passion, or the hundreds of brilliant crafted cantatas that Bach would provide, week in and week out, for the next 20 years.

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 73; Leonhardt Consort; Gustav Leonhardt, conductor; Teldec 44279

Synopsis

Today’s date marks the anniversary of one of the most famous — and notorious — premieres in the history of classical music, that of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), in Paris on May 29, 1913.

From its first note — sounded by the bassoon at the extreme end of its highest register — Stravinsky’s score signaled the start of something radically different. It’s also remembered as the occasion of one of the most emotional reactions by any audience: catcalls and insults were hurled between the composer’s supporters and detractors, fistfights broke out and finally the police were called.

There were those, including Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the premiere, who felt the reactions were occasioned more by the dancing and the stage picture than by the music itself.

Years later, when Monteux was asked what he thought of the original production, he confessed to everyone’s amusement that he actually never saw it, because his eyes were glued to the score. “On hearing this near riot behind me, I decided to keep the orchestra together at any cost … I did, and we played it to the end absolutely as we had rehearsed it in the peace of an empty theatre,” he wrote.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): The Rite of Spring; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Georg Solti, conductor; London 436 469

Synopsis

On today's date in 1938, Matthias the Painter, an opera by the German composer Paul Hindemith, had its premiere performance in Zurich, Switzerland.

This work had been scheduled to be premiered in 1934 at the Berlin Opera by the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, but the newly-installed Nazi regime canceled the performance.

In protest, Furtwangler performed a concert suite from Hindemith’s opera at a Berlin Philharmonic concert, resulting in a loud pro-Hindemith demonstration on the part of the audience. The Nazi press responded with attacks on both Hindemith and Furtwangler. By the end of 1934 it was clear to all in Germany that the Nazis would brook no opposition when it came to cultural matters.

So how had the quintessentially German Hindemith offended the new regime? In 1929 Hitler had attended the premiere of another Hindemith opera, News of the Day, and hated it — labeling it “degenerate.” Furthermore, his wife and many of his closest musician friends were Jewish. Hindemith became persona non grata in Nazi Germany, and, shortly after the Zurich premiere of his new opera, he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., where he taught at Tanglewood and Yale, becoming an American citizen in 1946.

Music Played in Today's Program

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Mathis der Maler; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; EMI 55237