Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Benjamin Britten was the most famous English opera composer of the 20th century, but ironically his first opera, Paul Bunyan, had an American theme and premiered at Columbia University in New York City on today's date in 1941.

Britten lived in America from 1939 to 1942. When his American publisher suggested he write something that could be performed by any high school, his good friend, British poet W.H. Auden fashioned a libretto around the tall tales of the mythical American folk hero, the giant logger Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.

The New York Times review of the premiere of Paul Bunyan was a mixture of praise and pans. “Mr. Britten is a very clever young man,” wrote Olin Downes, but firmly suggested the young composer was capable of much better things.

His next opera, Peter Grimes, would receive its world premiere in London, in 1945, by which time Britten was back in England for good, but like Paul Bunyan had an American connection: it was originally commissioned for $1000 by the Koussevitsky Foundation of Boston, and so received its American premiere at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1946 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

Music Played in Today's Program

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Paul Bunyan Overture; English Chamber Orchestra; Philip Brunelle, conductor; Virgin 45093

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): “Sea Interludes” from Peter Grimes; BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor; Teldec 73126

Synopsis

On today's date in 1953, at New York’s 92nd Street YMCA, the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult String Quartet No. 1 by American composer Elliott Carter.

Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce — an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive and in every way grand — the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson.

That same year Carter’s quartet won first prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium — a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My Quartet No. 1 was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize.

Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years — although the composer himself insisted that fantasy and invention, rather than difficulty for its own sake, had always been his goal.

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): String Quartet No. 1; The Composers Quartet; Nonesuch 71249

Synopsis

On today's date in 1953, at New York’s 92nd Street YMCA, the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult String Quartet No. 1 by American composer Elliott Carter.

Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce — an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive and in every way grand — the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson.

That same year Carter’s quartet won First Prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium — a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My Quartet No. 1 was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize.

Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years — although the composer himself insisted that fantasy and invention, rather than difficulty for its own sake, had always been his goal.

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): String Quartet No. 1; The Composers Quartet; Nonesuch 71249

Synopsis

Today marks the anniversary of the first performance of the best-known work of Swiss-born American composer, Ernest Bloch, whose Hebrew Rhapsody: Schelomo, for cello and orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1917. The piece is a meditation on the Book of Ecclesiastes, which describes King Solomon reflecting sadly on the vanity of human endeavor — Schelomo being the original Hebrew pronunciation of Solomon.

Schelomo premiered just a year after Bloch came to the United States. In America, Bloch had found encouragement and remarkable acceptance of his music. His Schelomo was premiered at an all-Bloch concert at Carnegie Hall arranged by The Society of the Friends of Music with the Philadelphia orchestra’s principal cellist Hans Kindler as soloist.

Schelomo was originally written with Russian cellist Serge Alexander Barjansky in mind, and was dedicated to him and his wife; but it was not until a concert in Rome in 1933, a fateful year for European Jewish communities, that Bloch got to conduct the work with Barjansky as soloist. Despite his success in America, he tried to resume his career in Europe in the 1930s, but, discouraged by the rise of anti-Semitism and threats of war, he returned to American for good in 1938.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): Schelomo; Mischa Maisky, cello; Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 427 347

Synopsis

The marimba is a percussion instrument of tuned bars, usually made of wood, arranged like the keys of a piano. These bars are struck with mallets to produce resonate, rounded — and, well, woody — musical tones.

The marimba was developed in Mexico and Guatemala, inspired by instruments native to Africa reconstructed in the New World by enslaved Africans in Central America. By the mid-20th century, the marimba was showing up in jazz ensembles, and classical composers would, on occasion, even write a marimba concerto or two. More recently, massed marimbas make up a sonorous, albeit stationary, component of hyper-kinetic drum and bugle corps spectaculars.

Contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon loves the sound of the marimba, and so in 2006 wrote a piece for three marimbas, Splendid Wood.

‘Splendid Wood’ is a joyous celebration of the sound of wood, one of nature’s most basic materials. Wood is a part of all sorts of things in our world, but is used most thrillingly and gloriously in instruments. This work reflects the evolving patterns inside a piece of wood, always shifting, and yet every part is related and contributes to the magnificent of the whole,” she said.

Splendid Wood was commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble and had its New York premiere on today’s date in 2007, by the Mannes Percussion Ensemble under the direction of James Preiss.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Splendid Wood; New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; Naxos 8.559683