Composers Datebook
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Composers Datebook
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessi...
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Mozart and Strinasacchi in Vienna
On today’s date in 1784, Italian violinist Regina Strinasacchi gave a concert in Vienna and had the good sense to commission a new work for the occasi...
Meyerbeer's 'African Maid'
On today’s date in 1865, the hottest ticket in Paris was for the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer’s long-awaited grand opera L’Africaine, or The African...
Bostic's 'State of Grace'
Today’s date in 1945 marks the birthday in Pittsburgh of great American playwright August Wilson. He chronicled the experiences of the Great Northward...
Michael Hersch's Symphony No. 2
On today’s date in 2002, Mariss Jansons led the Pittsburg Symphony in the premiere performance of the Symphony No. 2 written by 32-year-old American c...
Beethoven waits for Liszt
On today’s date in 1841 an all-Beethoven concert was given at the Salle Erard to raise funds for the proposed Beethoven monument in Bonn, the late com...
Stockhausen's 'Sunday' from 'Light'
During the last 20 years of his life, avant-garde German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen concentrated on completing an ambitious cycle of seven operas,...
Arthur Farwell
During his stay in America, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák became convinced that distinctive American music could be based on two sources: the work son...
Dvorak's Seventh
At London’s St. James’s Hall on today’s date in 1885, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák conducted the London Philharmonic Society’s orchestra in the premi...
Bach in the USA
In 1863, the price of The New York Times was three cents, and many plunked down their pennies to read front-page news about “the rebellion” — what we...
The Ondes Martenot
On today’s date in 1928, French musician and inventor Maurice Martenot gave the first public demonstration of a new electronic instrument he had creat...
Webern conducts Berg
Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto was first performed in Barcelona, Spain, on today’s date in 1936, at the opening concert of the International Society for...
Beethover (sic) and Punto
The month of April in the year 1800 was an especially busy one for Ludwig van Beethoven. On the second of April at his first big orchestral concert in...
Gottschalk in Paris
Early in April in the year 1845, 15-year old American pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk performed at the Salle Pleyel in Paris. On the program was Chopi...
Rorem's Third
For the 1958-59 season of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, the orchestra’s newly-appointed music director, was eager to program as much n...
Vivian Fine's 'Missa Brevis'
Over the centuries, a wide range of composers have created musical settings of the Latin mass, but one of the more unusual and distinctive settings re...
Mozart's 'Coronation Concerto'
On today’s date in 1789, Mozart was in Dresden, performing his new piano concerto at the Royal Saxon Court. Mozart was pretty good at documenting his...
Jeremy Walker and Seven Psalms
Over the centuries, many composers have set verses from the Bible’s Book of Psalms to music, often in response to times of turmoil and trouble.
...
Loeffler's Quartet
On today’s date in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a string quartet by 32-year old composer Char...
Stokie and the Rite
On today’s date in 1930, Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the first staged presentation in America of Igor Stravinsky’s revolutio...
Giannini's Symphony No. 3
On today’s date in 1959, the Duke University Band under Paul Bryan gave the premiere performance of a new work they had commissioned: the Symphony No....
Shostakovich on NBC
On today’s date in 1938, radio listeners across North America tuned to the NBC network to hear the first American performance of the Symphony No. 5 by...
Bach and Mozart in New York
It’s usually new music that gets terrible reviews, but scanning old newspapers, you’ll find that occasionally old music gets panned with equal venom.<...
A Corigliano father and son act?
From 1951 to the time of his death in 1976, Texas-born conductor Victor Alesandro led the San Antonio Symphony.
Alessandro was a fine conductor...
Salzedo and the Harp
Carlos Salzedo, the most influential harpist of the 20th century, was born in Arcachon, France, on today’s date in 1885. He transformed the harp into...
Strauss goes batty?
The “waltz king” Johann Strauss Jr. was 45 before he tried his hand at writing an operetta, urged on by the management of Vienna’s Theater an der Wien...
The Gong Show
Today we offer a special “Gong Show” edition of the Composer’s Datebook.
On today’s date in 1791, at the height of the French Revolution, the Pa...
Offenbach, Wagner and Satsuma in New York
In the 19th century, much like today, New Yorkers looking for musical entertainment had a lot to choose from. For example, on today’s date in 1871, th...
Wallingford Riegger
On today’s date in 1961, American composer Wallingford Riegger died in New York City, a month shy of what would have been his 76th birthday.
Rie...
Variations on a tune by Handel
On this date in 1747, London concert-goers gathered in response to a newspaper announcement, which read, “At the Theatre-Royal in Covent-Garden will b...
Liszt vs. Thalberg
On today’s date in 1837, Princess Cristina Belgiojoso-Trivulzio, scored the social coup of the season at her Parisian salon. Ostensibly, it was the cu...
The 'Naqoyqatsi' Cello Concerto by Philip Glass
In 2002, film director Godfrey Reggio released his latest movie. Naqoyqatsi — the Hopi word for “life as war” — was Reggio’s third and final installme...
David Dzubay's "Ra"
Ok, if you say, “band music,” most people think “marching bands; sporting events.” So if someone tells you there is a band work titled Ra, you might...
The Vienna Philharmonic and American composers
In Beethoven’s day, there were no independent symphonic orchestras in Vienna, so when Ludwig van wanted to put on an orchestral concert, the way he di...
Symphonic Mayuzumi
One of the preeminent figures in 20th century Japanese concert music was composer Toshiro Mayuzumi, born in Yokohama in 1929.
The range of his m...
Madeleine Dring
She’s been called a “British Gershwin” but perhaps a “British Poulenc” might more accurately describe the genial and graceful music of Madeleine Dring...
Shostakovich in America
It’s all a matter of timing. In 1942, the Soviet Union was America’s wartime ally, and the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich made the cover of TIME...
Panufnik's 'Love Abide'
Dealing with the death of loved ones is never easy, but sometimes music can help — especially if music plays a role in the lives of both the departed...
Bartok's Violin Concerto
Any composer who sets out to write a violin concerto knows their new work will be measured against the famous concertos of the past. But in the fall o...
Harbison's Symphony No. 1
The Boston Symphony premiered a new symphony on today’s date in 1984 — a commission for its Centenary Celebrations. It was the Symphony No. 1 by Ameri...
Schubert's Symphony No. 9
In 1838, Robert Schumann visited the grave of Franz Schubert in Vienna and paid a courtesy call on Schubert's brother, Ferdinand, who was still alive....