Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years.

The previous such event had been for the 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell — whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in the Abbey’s north choir aisle, should you wish to pay your respects.

He had left instructions for which music was to be played: his anthem “O Taste and See” and also his setting of the hymn, “All People that on Earth do Dwell,” written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place at Westminster Abbey just five years earlier, in 1953.

The service was broadcast live by the BBC, and the announcer noted that if all the submitted requests to attend had have been honored, the Abbey would have been filled twice over.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): “O Taste and See” and “All People that on Earth do Dwell” (arr. of “Old 100th”); The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, conductor; Collegium 107

Ralph Vaughan Williams (arr.): “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” (Old 100th) Christ Church Cathedral Choir; English Orchestra; Stephen Darlington, conductor; Nimbus 5166

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, British composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5, the last in this popular series.

Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him.

In 1930, Elgar was 73 and liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given him some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, he got the idea for the musical themes of his new march on a drive through the countryside with a friend. He suddenly asked for something on which he could jot down his ideas. All the driver could produce was a road map of Worcestershire — so on its margins the first notes of his new score were scribbled.

The march proved to be one of his last new orchestral works. He had planned to write a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, a kind of soldier’s funeral march, he said, but he died in 1934.

Music Played in Today's Program

Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; Philips 454 250

Synopsis

The Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads — and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well.

For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download.

Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, La Salsa, turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and his native Puerto Rico for its basic materials, referencing riffs and rhythmic patterns familiar to salsa dancers for the work’s outer movements, with a slow second movement in habañera form.

“Puerto Rican music, especially salsa and folkloric music, has been in my compositional DNA. The vitality of the rhythms and the unique way in which melodic structure merge with the rhythms has inspired me to the present day. I always remember with nostalgia my childhood experiences in the Puerto Rican countryside, and these feelings of longing are also present in my work,” he said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Roberto Sierra (b. 1953): Sinfonia No. 3 (La Salsa); Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Delfs, conductor; MSO Classics MSO11 (digital download)

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London.

Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two, was called the Tahiti Trot.

Late in 1927, on a dare from conductor Nikolai Malko, 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated his Tahiti Trot into his new ballet, The Age of Gold.

Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided that the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting, “Only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society.”

In other words, “Nyet, Nyet!” to “Nanette!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Vincent Youmans (1898-1946): No, No Nanette Overture; Broadway cast album; Columbia 30563

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández.

She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and promoted concerts of Cuban music. In 1949, she formed and directed a Women’s Choir and was named professor of harmony, music history, pedagogy and composition at the National Music Conservatory in Havana. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista of composers who incorporated Afro-Cuban traditions into their music.

Hernández wrote pieces for solo piano and chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral works. She is also credited with being one of the first, and most important composers of Cuban art songs. She died in 1971 at 59, and her music is only recently becoming better known outside of Cuba.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gisela Hernández (1912-1971): Cubanas for Piano: No. 3, Guajira; Juana Zayas, piano; Music & Arts MACD-1069