Composers Datebook

• Respighi's 'The Pines of Rome'

  SynopsisToday marks the birthday in 1879 of Ottorino Respighi, a rare Italian composer more famous for orchestral works than operas. And no wonder — Respighi was a master orchestrator, learning his craft first-hand from brilliant Russian orchestrator Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov during the time the young Italian served as principal violist in the pit band of the Russian Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg.One of Respighi’s best-loved works is The Pines of Rome. It includes a slow section depicting a full moon shining on the pines growing on the Janiculum hill west of Rome. The music includes the song of a nightingale, played from a phonograph record of an actual nightingale. That record, made in 1910, was the first ever made of live bird song, and using it as part of Respighi’s orchestration was cutting-edge stuff in 1924.This recording was made by Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, who was known noted for his fiery temper, but Dorati had an equally strong sense of humor, so in the 1950s, when one of his Minneapolis Symphony musicians substituted a Spike Jones once during a rehearsal, of the Respighi piece, Dorati got the joke and laughed along with everybody else.Music Played in Today's ProgramOttorino Respighi (1879-1936): Feste Romane; Montréal Symphony; Charles Dutoit, conductor; London 410 145 Spike Jones (1911-1965): Rhapsody from Hunger; Spike Jones and his City Slickers; RCA 3235

  --------  

  2:00

  --------

  2:00
• 'The Composer is Dead!'

  SynopsisIt’s a book! It’s a YouTube video! It’s a concert hall work! It’s by Stookey and Snicket!Now, “Stookey and Snicket” is not the name of a law firm in some obscure novel by Charles Dickens, but is in fact the collaborative team of American composer Nathaniel Stookey and American novelist Daniel Handler, who writes popular children’s books under the pen name of Lemony Snicket.Stookey was the youngest composer ever commissioned for the San Francisco Symphony’s New and Unusual Music Series when he collaborated with Handler on a piece for narrator and orchestra. Their collaboration, The Composer is Dead, premiered on this date in 2006.This “new and unusual” work with a macabre title is similar to Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in that it intends to introduce young audiences to the instruments of the orchestra. But anyone familiar with Lemony Snicket books can expect something a little quirky, and, in fact, The Composer is Dead is a murder mystery, complete with a police inspector rounding up the usual suspects, and eventually pointing the finger…And if you want to find out “whodunit” — well, you’ll have to buy the book!Music Played in Today's ProgramLemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey: The Composer is Dead; Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler), narrator; San Francisco Symphony; Edwin Outwater, conductor; Book Audio CD

  --------  

  2:00

  --------

  2:00
• 'The Ballad of Baby Doe'

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1956, one of the most successful of all American operas had its first performance at the Center Opera House in Colorado. The Ballad of Baby Doe was created by composer Douglas Moore and librettist John Latouche, and was based on a real-life tale of love and loss that had played out in that state.Elizabeth McCourt Tabor, better known as “Baby Doe,” became the second wife of Colorado prospector, businessman and politician Horace Tabor in 1883. Tabor’s messy divorce and remarriage to the young and beautiful Baby Doe was a major scandal at the time. He was immensely wealthy, and had built an Opera House that bears his name and still stands in Leadville, Colorado, where he met Baby Doe. In 1899, he had lost his entire fortune, and after his death, Baby Doe lived on in a poor miner’s shack near Leadville, where she was found frozen to death in 1935.And it was on a cold winter’s day — a year before the premiere of their new opera — that Moore and Latouche paid a visit to Tabor’s Opera House in Leadville and stood on its stage for inspiration. A witness of their visit recalled: “I was intensely aware of a great and eerie silence that suddenly came over the building. If ever there were ghosts of the past in the Tabor Opera House I could believe that they were there at that moment!”Music Played in Today's ProgramDouglas Moore (1893-1969): The Ballad of Baby Doe; Jan Grissom, soprano; Central City Opera Orchestra; John Moriarty, conductor; Newport Classics 85593

  --------  

  2:00

  --------

  2:00
• Noteworthy Boulanger and Zwilich

  SynopsisIt was on this day in 1913 that the French Academy of Fine Arts — for the first time in its history — presented its highest award, the Prix de Rome, to a woman. The honor was awarded to Lili Boulanger, who was just 19 at the time. She was born in Paris in 1893, the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, who would become the most famous teacher of composition in the 20th century, numbering an amazing array of famous American composers among her students, ranging from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass.Nadia’s sister Lili, however, suffered from poor health. Her tragically short career was interrupted by World War I, when she volunteered to nurse wounded soldiers. She died before the great conflict was over, on March 15, 1918, at 24.Nearer to our own time, another woman, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, made history when she became the first woman composer to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. That was in 1983, and the piece was her Symphony No. 1. Born in Miami, Florida, in 1939, she studied composition with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions at Juilliard, and accomplished another first by becoming the first woman to earn the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition at the famous school. Her Symphony No. 3 was commissioned in 1992 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic.Music Played in Today's ProgramLili Boulanger (1893-1918): Hymne au Soleil; New London Chamber Choir; James Wood, conductor; Hyperion 66726Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939): Symphony No. 3; Louisville Orchestra; James Sedares, conductor; Koch International 7278

  --------  

  2:00

  --------

  2:00
• The theme to 'Seinfeld'

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1989, NBC transmitted the pilot episode of a sitcom that 180 episodes later would be recognized as a TV classic. In composing, as in comedy, timing is everything, so when comedian Jerry Seinfeld approached composer Jonathan Wolff about writing the intro music for Seinfeld, Wolff knew it was time for something a little different than a generic sitcom theme.“When he called me, Jerry described to me the problem he was having: the opening and closing credits for this new show were to be Jerry doing stand-up material in front of an audience. He tells jokes, people laugh. And he wanted unique, signature theme music to go with it, [so I said] how about this? … We treat your human voice telling jokes as the melody of the Seinfeld theme! My job will be to accompany you in a way that’s fun and quirky but does not interfere with the audio of your standup routine,” Wolff recalled. That meant the Seinfeld intro would change each week, with Wolff performing on slap bass themes and variations that danced before, after, and around the cadence of Jerry’s punchlines like, as Wolff put it, “a vaudeville rim shot.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJonathan Wolff (b. 1958): Theme, from Seinfeld; Water Tower Music digital download

  --------  

  2:00

  --------

  2:00

Más podcasts de Música

Podcasts a la moda de Música

Acerca de Composers Datebook

Composers Datebook: Podcasts del grupo