Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Today’s date marks the 1953 New York premiere of a musical movie that flopped when it debuted but has since become a cult classic — and for two good reasons.

First, the movie’s script — written by Dr. Seuss — was about a little boy named Bart who didn’t enjoy practicing the piano and who was worried that his widowed mom might marry his dreaded piano teacher. The film, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, is cast as Bart’s dream — or nightmare — with surreal scenarios as only Dr. Seuss could imagine them.

Second, the film boasted a score by Frederick Hollander, a composer of droll Berlin cabaret songs who found a welcome home in Hollywood. For The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, he crafted witty songs and an extravagant instrumental sequence for a whacky Seussian ballet.

Despite all that, The New York Times reviewer was bored: “A ponderously literate affair,” he wrote.

The film did have its fans, however, and one was a little boy who did like to practice the piano — singer and pianist Michael J. Feinstein, who lovingly gathered together all of Hollander’s used and unused music for the movie for a limited edition CD-set released in 2010.

Music Played in Today's Program

Friedrich Hollaender (1896-1976): ‘5000 Fingers of Dr. T’ film score; studio orchestra

Synopsis

Violin soloists have it easy: there are thousands of violin concertos they can choose from, starting in the Baroque era of Bach and Vivaldi, and continuing right up to the present day, with new violin concertos available from composers from John Adams to Ellen Taaffe Zwlich.

Oboe concertos? Not so much. There are some fine oboe concertos out there, but they just aren’t being written as often as new works for the violin or piano, it seems.

But on today’s date in 2010, a welcome new oboe concerto by contemporary Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin received its premiere performance at the Concertgebouw in Amstrerdam.

In describing his new work, he wrote: “It was my intention … to give expression to the entire palette of the tonal and technical qualities of this wonderful instrument. In my score there are however two further essential actors: the [English horn] which permanently imitates or answers the solo instrument … and the orchestra itself.”

Now, Shchedrin knows a thing or two about writing concertos and has written quite a few: for trumpet, cello, and viola; six concertos for piano — as well as five showpiece Concertos for Orchestra.

Music Played in Today's Program

Rodion Shchedrin (1932-2025): Oboe Concerto; Alexei Ogrinchuk, oboe; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Suzanna Malkki, conductor; RCO Live CD 11001

Synopsis

The “Three B’s” are traditionally Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, of course — but today we’re offering Boccherini, Brahms and Berio.

20th-century Italian composer Luciano Berio, noted for his avant-garde scores, was asked to orchestrate the F minor Clarinet Sonata by Johannes Brahms — in 1986, for a Los Angeles Philharmonic concert featuring clarinetist Michele Zukofsky. Berio admired Brahms, and created a very respectful arrangement, but Berio couldn’t resist adding something of his own: a totally original 13-bar orchestral introduction that segues into the Brahms score.

Eleven years earlier, on today’s date in 1975, Berio’s orchestration of one of the greatest hits of the 18th century Italian composer Luigi Boccherini received its premiere performance in Milan. Originally a quintet for strings, Boccherini’s Night Music in the Streets of Madrid was written around 1780 when he was living in Spain. This chamber work became very popular — even though Boccherini feared no one outside Madrid would understand it. 200 years after it was written, when asked to supply a short piece for the La Scala Orchestra in Milan, Berio arranged the final movement of Boccherini’s quintet, music evoking the procession of Madrid’s night watchmen signaling the midnight curfew.

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (arr. Luciano Berio) (1833-1897): Clarinet Sonata No. 1

Luigi Boccherini (arr. Luciano Berio): Ritirata Notturna di Madrid; Daniel Ottensamer, clarinet; Basel Symphony; Ivor Bolton, conductor; Sony 19075982072

Synopsis

If you’re a baby boomer who played in a high school or college band, you’ll probably remember the Divertimento for Band by American composer Vincent Persichetti, which premiered on today’s date in 1950, with the composer conducting the Goldman Band.

Persichetti didn’t envision his Divertimento as a band work, per se. At the start, it was just some woodwind figures accentuated by brass and percussion. When he realized that violins and cellos just didn’t seem to fit in the picture, Divertimento began to take shape in his mind as a work for winds, brass and percussion alone.

He went on to write a dozen more compositions for concert band. Beyond his works for band, he was a prolific composer of keyboard, chamber and orchestra pieces. He once claimed that since musical ideas often came to him in his car, he liked to tape a piece of music paper to his steering wheel, so he could jot down ideas and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

Luckily for other residents of his hometown of Philadelphia, apparently this practice didn’t result in any head-on collisions!

Music Played in Today's Program

Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987): Divertimento; North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor; Klavier 11124

Synopsis

Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was born in Bergen on today’s date in 1843. He is credited with putting Norway on the map, musically speaking, drawing inspiration from the folk music of his native land.

What you might not know is that two famous French composers were fans. Grieg was about 19 years older than Claude Debussy and about 32 years older than Maurice Ravel, but both knew and admired his music.

Despite criticizing Grieg’s Piano Concerto for being too much like Schumann’s, Debussy included Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in one of his public recitals, praised Grieg’s Peer Gynt incidental music, and described Grieg’s songs as possessing “the icy coldness of the Nordic lakes [and] the intensive fire of the sudden Nordic spring.”

Ravel once played some of Grieg’s Norwegian dances for the composer in Paris, timidly at first, but when Grieg asked for a stronger beat, saying, “You should see our peasants with their fiddles stamping the rhythm with their feet. Start over!” Ravel complied, and the elder composer got up and started dancing. After Grieg’s death Ravel said: “Next to Debussy there’s no other composer to whom I feel more related than Grieg.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Lyric Pieces Book VI, No. 6; Homeward Emil Gilels, piano; DG 449721