Composers Datebook

• Copland breaks in a new pony

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1913, but after struggling through the “minor” disruptions of two World Wars and the Great Depression, the symphony’s 1948 season marked its rebirth as a major player among American orchestras. Since then, the Houston Symphony’s roster of conductors has included some of the greatest: Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli and André Previn, to name just a few.For its 1948 debut concert, the new Houston Symphony commissioned and premiered a new work by Aaron Copland — a concert suite adapted from his latest film score.Copland had gone to Hollywood early in 1948 to write the music for the cinematic version of John Steinbeck’s novella, The Red Pony, and spent ten weeks writing about an hour’s worth of music for the new film, which was scheduled for release in 1949 — so that meant his 1948 concert suite from The Red Pony debuted even before the movie.The Houston Post’s review called Copland’s suite “clean, joyous, ingenious and irresistibly spirited,” and correctly predicted “Mr. Copland’s Red Pony has grand little gaits, and will stand playing again — here and in a lot of other places.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): The Red Pony Suite; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, conductor; Delos 3221

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• Olga Neuwirth's 'Lost Highway'

  Synopsis“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?” On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera asked a different question: “Which is better — the opera, or the movie it’s based on?”The new opera, Lost Highway, is by Olga Neuwirth, an Austrian composer, and was inspired by a 1997 movie by American film director David Lynch.Like David Lynch’s film noir, Olga Neuwirth’s opera, which combines live action and music with videos and electronic tape, is dark, often baffling, and more than a little creepy – perfect for a Halloween premiere, in fact. Neuwirth herself had this to say:“I wanted the stage to be aseptic and empty … I had to conceive music and video (the two forms of art which deal with time) simultaneously so that I would be able to match the famous film with a new arrangement of sound and image ... The singers and actors have to move through this terrible sense of space, namely, the sense of being nowhere, in a non-space, the non-real, the non-palpable … a terrifying and, at the same time, fascinating vortex between dream and reality.”Music Played in Today's ProgramOlga Neuwirth (b. 1968): Intro from Lost Highway; Klanform Wien; Johannes Kalitzke, conductor; Kairos CD-0012542KAI

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• 'What's in a name?' asks Aaron Copland

  SynopsisIt was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. The premiere took place at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C, as part of the 80th birthday celebrations for music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who had commissioned Copland’s score for $500 — not a bad commission back then!Copland used an old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts,” as a principal theme for his ballet. The austere but simple elegance of Shaker art reminded him, he said, of Graham’s style of dancing, and tied in with her vague suggestions that the ballet would be about early American pioneers. Copland left the title up to Graham.Arriving in Washington for the rehearsals, Copland wrote: “The first thing I said to Martha when I saw her was, ‘What have you called the ballet?’ She replied, ‘Appalachian Spring.’ ‘What a pretty title. Where did you get it?’ I asked, and Martha said, ‘Well, actually it’s from a poem by Hart Crane.’ I asked, ‘Does the poem have anything to do with your ballet?’ ‘No,’ said Martha. ‘I just liked the title.’”Understandably, Copland said he was always amused when people said, “Oh Mr. Copland, I can just see the Appalachian Mountains when I hear your music!”Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring; Saint Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; EMI 73653

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• Don Giovanni in Prague (and Vienna)

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Prague early in October that year, but as singers and instrumentalists alike needed more time than originally planned to prepare his difficult new score, the premiere occurred later than planned.The October 29th premiere was a triumph, and a Prague newspaper reported that Mozart was received with threefold cheers when he entered and left the theater. At the request of Joseph II, the Austrian emperor, Don Giovanni was staged in Vienna the following year. The emperor was pleased: “That opera is divine,” he told Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, but, surprisingly, the Viennese audiences didn’t seem to like it.Da Ponte quoted the Emperor as suggesting Don Giovanni was just too complicated for their taste: “Such music is not meat for the teeth of my Viennese,” he said. In his memoirs, da Ponte wrote, “I reported this remark to Mozart, who replied quietly: ‘Well, give them time to chew on it, then.’””He was not mistaken,” continued da Ponte. “At each performance of Don Giovanni the applause increased, and little by little, even Vienna of the dull teeth came to savor it.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Don Giovanni; Michele Pertusi (as Leporello); London Philharmonic; Georg Solti, conductor; London 455 500

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• 'Haunted Blue' by Jeremy Walker

  SynopsisIn 2016, Minneapolis-based jazz composer and pianist Jeremy Walker collaborated with Consortium Carissimi, a Twin Cities early music vocal ensemble in the creation of some brand-new music in the style of the ensemble’s namesake, 17th-century Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi.One of the pieces Walker composed was a duet for tenor and mezzo-soprano. The mezzo for the premiere performance was Clara Osowski, a singer with a special passion for art songs, past and present.Since Osowski was as impressed with Walker’s music as he with her voice, after that concert they decided to embark on a project to infuse the modern jazz harmonies of Bill Evans into the Romantic art song genre of Schubert and Brahms.They chose texts by Whitman, Longfellow, and Minnesota lyricist Greg Foley, for a song cycle, Haunted Blue. “The ‘blue’ in the title refers to the overall mood of the music,” Walker explained. “But it also refers to the type of harmonies I’m using. The ‘haunted’ part is like when you’re half asleep and half awake at night, and dreams combine with reality.”A studio recording and even some music videos were made, and on today’s date in 2018, Haunted Blue received its premiere public performance at a CD release concert in Minneapolis.Music Played in Today's ProgramJeremy Walker: ‘Alma Gentil’ and ‘The Rainy Day,’ from Haunted Blue Clara Osowski, mezzo-soprano; Tefsa Wondemagegnehu, tenor; Jeremy Walker, piano; Haunted Blue CD 93428 00177

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