Composers Datebook

Synopsis

American composer John Harbison was born in 1938, and so, as a young lad, grew up at the tail end of the Golden Age of radio and the big band Era of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, the Dorsey Brothers, and Benny Goodman.

“Over the radio came sounds played by bands in hotels and ballrooms, now distant memories that seemed to a seventh-grade, small town, late-night listener like the pulse of giant imagined cities,” he wrote.

Decades later, he translated those early musical memories into a three-movement composition for a big band orchestra. “These sounds, layered with real experience of some of their places of origin, magnified, distorted, idealized and destabilized, came into contact with other sounds, some of recent origin, and resulted in a celebratory, menacing suite I titled Three City Blocks,” he recalled.

The U.S. Air Force Band gave the premiere performance of Three City Blocks on today’s date in 1993. And, keeping in the spirit of the old days when every major hotel could boast its own dance band, Harbison’s Three City Blocks premiered at the Hilton Hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Harbison (b. 1938): Three City Blocks; New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble; Frank Battisti, conductor; Centaur 2288

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1914 marks the birthday of one of Puerto Rico’s most fascinating composers! Born in Ukraine under the name Yakov Ovcharov, he came to the United States in 1923, changed his name to Jack Delano, and in the 1930s became a photographer for Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. In 1941, he was sent to Puerto Rico on a shoot and fell in love with the island. After Pearl Harbor, he was drafted by the Army Air Corps to film U.S. forces in the South Pacific, but in 1946 returned to Puerto Rico to stay.

Delano then started writing music incorporating Puerto Rican folk material, and even works performed by the island’s symphony orchestra.

In his spare time he was also a notable cartoonist, poet, professor, architectural designer and founder of Puerto Rico’s first publicly funded educational television station. In 1951, he directed Los Peloteros, a movie about poor rural kids’ love of baseball which became a classic of Puerto Rican cinema, and he composed its film score as well — why are we not surprised?

As they would say on the island, Jack Delano was chévere — a quite remarkable fellow!

Music Played in Today's Program

Jack Delano (1914-1997): “Allegretto Grazioso” from Sonatina; Duo Classico; Suellen Hershman, flute; David Witten, piano; Musical Heritage Society; MM-512502

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1892, The Washington Post’s headlines included one that read: “Sousa’s farewell toot — last appearance of the Marine Band under his baton — admirers of the popular conductor crowd forward for a farewell shake of the hand at the close of his final concert on the White House grounds.”

In his 12-year tenure with the Marine Band, Sousa had made it one of the finest touring ensembles in his day. He was famous coast-to-coast — but not all that well paid. While on tour early in 1892, he had been approached in Chicago by an impresario with a business proposition: “Why not form your own band, Mr. Sousa? I can offer you four times your Marine Corps salary, plus a percentage of the new band’s profits.” He thought it over, and upon his return to Washington, D.C., submitted his resignation effective July 31, 1892. His final concerts with the Marine Band took place on July 29 and 30 that year.

With that, one important chapter of his musical career had ended, but another was just beginning. Over the next four decades, the Sousa Band would go on to become famous worldwide.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932): Manhattan Beach; Dallas Wind Symphony; Jerry Junkin, conductor; Reference 94

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1950, the Michigan All-Star Band, under the direction of Dale Harris, gave the premiere performance of a new work, George Washington Bridge at Interlochen Summer Music Camp. This music was written by American composer William Schuman, who was experiencing an especially creative period in the early 1950s. Schuman was living in New Rochelle, New York, but as president of the Juilliard School, spent much of his time in Manhattan, and, as Schuman explained:

“There are few days in the year when I do not see the George Washington Bridge. I pass it on my way to work as I drive along the Henry Hudson Parkway on the New York shore. Ever since my student days when I watched the progress of its construction, this bridge has had for me an almost human personality, and this personality is astonishingly varied, assuming different moods, depending on the time of day or night, the weather, and, of course, my own mood as I pass by … I have walked across it late at night when it was shrouded in fog, and during the brilliant sunshine hours of midday … It is difficult to imagine a more gracious welcome or dramatic entry to the great metropolis.”

The piece is in ABCBA form — a little like the rising and falling arch of a suspension bridge, in fact, and, since its 1950 premiere at Interlochen, Schuman’s George Washington Bridge has won a secure place as a classic of the wind band repertory.

Music Played in Today's Program

William Schuman (1910-1992): George Washington Bridge; Rutgers Wind Ensemble; William Bertz, conductor; Naxos 572230

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1962, the Symphony No. 5 for strings, by German-born American composer Gene Gutchë, received its premiere performance at Chatauqua, New York.

Romeo Maximilian Eugene Ludwig Gutchë was born in Berlin in 1907. His father, a well-to-do European businessman, was not amused by the notion of his son “wasting” his time on music, even though famous Berlin-based composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni confirmed the young man’s talent. So he ran away from home, abandoning any hope of a sizeable inheritance in the process, and came to America.

He studied at the Universities of Minnesota and Iowa, and, in 1950, at 43, produced his first symphony. He would go on to compose six symphonies in all, plus an hour-long symphonic work for chorus and orchestra, Akhenaten, premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1983. For most of his life, despite fellowships and commissions, Gutchë lived modestly with his wife, Marion, in a cottage in White Bear Lake, Minnesota.

He died in the fall of 2001 — one year after this Cincinnati Symphony recording of his Symphony No. 5 was reissued on compact disc.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gene Gutchë (1907-2001): Symphony No. 5; Cincinnati Symphony; Max Rudolf, conductor; CRI 825