Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1909, Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra had its premiere in Dresden. The libretto, a free adaptation of the grim, ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles, was by the Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

In ancient Greek tragedies, violence occurred off-stage, and for his libretto, Hofmannsthal honored that tradition. But the music of Strauss evoking the tragedy’s violence unleashed a huge orchestra with a ferocity that stunned early listeners.

After its American premiere, one New York critic wrote of “a total delineation of shrieks and groans, of tortures physical in the clear definition and audible in their gross realism … Snarling of stopped trumpets, barking of trombones, moaning of bassoons and squealing of violins.”

Even Strauss later admitted Elektra “penetrated to the uttermost limits of … the receptivity of human ears,” and what he called his “green horror” opera might cause him to be type-cast as a purveyor of creepy-crawly music. And so, Strauss prudently suggested to Hofmansthal “Next time, we’ll write a Mozart opera.”

Almost two years later to the day, on January 26, 1911, their “Mozart” opera, Der Rosenkavalier, or the The Rose Bearer premiered. It’s set in 18th century Vienna, and for this opera Strauss included anachronistic, but eminently hummable waltz tunes.

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Elektra; Alessandra Marc, soprano; Vienna Philharmonic; Giuseppe Sinopoli, conductor; DG 453 429

Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier; Waltz Suite Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, conductor; Sony 60989

Synopsis

On this day in 1946, Igor Stravinsky conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of his Symphony in Three Movements, a work inspired in part by World War II newsreels.

“Each episode in the symphony is linked in my imagination with a specific cinematographic impression of the war. But the symphony is not programmatic. Composers combine notes — that is all. How and in what form the things of this world are impressed upon their music is not for them to say,” Stravinsky wrote.

What Stravinsky did say was that images of goose-stepping soldiers influenced its first movement, and its third movement was inspired in part by newsreels of the victorious march of the Allies into Germany. The themes of middle movement, however, had nothing to do with the war, but consisted of bits and pieces Stravinsky salvaged from his unused and unfinished score for the 1943 movie The Song of Bernadette. The producers decided instead to go with a score by Alfred Newman, a more experienced film composer.

To Stravinsky’s embarrassment, Newman’s score for The Song of Bernadette won an Oscar for the Best Film Score of 1943.

But Igor needn’t have felt too chagrined — his music may have failed in Hollywood, but it triumphed at Carnegie Hall.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Symphony in Three Movements; Berlin Philharmonic; Pierre Boulez, conductor; DG 457 616

Alfred Newman (1901-1970): Song of Bernadette; National Philharmonic; Charles Gerhardt, conductor; RCA 184

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1837, the Dublin-born pianist and composer John Field breathed his last in Moscow at 54.

Born in 1782 into musical family, Field soon moved to London to study with the Italian composer Muzio Clementi and became a sought-after concert artist at a very tender age.

Haydn heard the 13-year perform in London and was impressed. At 16, Field premiered his Piano Concerto No. 1. Over the course of his life, he would meet, play for, and perform with many other famous composers of his day, including Beethoven, Czerny, Hummel, Moscheles, and Mendelssohn.

Field ended up in St. Petersburg, where he published his own compositions and apparently lived rather extravagantly. It’s said he was so well-off that he could afford to turn down a lucrative appointment to the Russian court.

In Tolstoy’s famous novel War and Peace, the Countess Rostova even asks a pianist to play her favorite Field nocturne. And it’s quite likely that while in Russia, like most of the Russian nobility of the day, Field got by speaking French, not Russian.

It’s said that on his deathbed when asked what his religion was, Field replied with a French pun: “I am not a Calvinist, but a Claveciniste (French for a harpsichord player).”

Music Played in Today's Program

John Field (1782-1837): Nocturne No. 2; John O’Conor; Telarc 80199

Synopsis

As kids, many of us received home-made presents: a sweater or pair of socks, perhaps, or — if you were unlucky — a crocheted bow tie you were forced to wear when Auntie came to visit.

On today’s date in 1720, Johann Sebastian Bach started a home-made present for his 9-year old son, Wilhelm Friedemann. It was a collection of little keyboard pieces designed to teach him to play the harpsichord, pieces now known as Bach’s Two- and Three-Part Inventions.

Here’s how J.S. Bach himself described these pieces: “Straightforward Instruction, in which amateurs of the keyboard, and especially the eager ones, are shown a clear way not only of learning to play cleanly in two voices, but also, after further progress, of dealing correctly and satisfactorily with three … all the while acquiring a strong foretaste of composition.”

In the case of little Wilhelm Friedemann, it did the trick. Not only did he master the keyboard, he became a composer himself.

Even just attentively listening to Papa Bach’s inventions can have its rewards, according to the late music critic Michael Steinberg, who wrote, “Bach has done such a good job at instilling 'a strong foretaste of composition’ that… they will make the hearer a better, … a more aware and thus a more enjoying, listener as well.”

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Two-Part Invention #6; Simone Dinnerstein; Sony 79597

Synopsis

The Piano Concerto No. 1 by Brahms received its premiere public performance on today’s date in 1859 with the Hanover Court Orchestra under the direction of Brahms’ close friend Joseph Joachim and its 25-year composer as soloist.

That first night audience had never heard anything quite like it. In his biography of Brahms, Jan Swafford describes what was expected of a piano concerto back then, namely “virtuosic brilliance, dazzling cadenzas, not too many minor keys, [and nothing] too tragic.”

“To the degree that these were the rules, [Brahms] violated every one of them,” wrote Swafford.

His concerto opens with heaven-storming drama, continues with deeply melancholic lyricism, and closes with something akin to hard-fought, even grim, triumph. Rather than a display of flashy virtuosity, Brahms’s concerto comes off as somber and deeply emotional. A second performance, five days later in Leipzig, was hissed.

“I am experimenting and feeling my way,” Brahms wrote to his friend Joachim, adding, “all the same, the hissing was rather too much."

Now regarded a dark Romantic masterpiece, it’s important to remember how long it took audiences to warm to Brahms’ music. American composer Elliott Carter recalled that even in the 1920s, Boston concert goers used to quip that the exit signs meant, “This way in case of Brahms.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Piano Concerto No. 1 - I. Maestoso - Poco più moderato; Maurizio Pollini, piano; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 447041