Composers Datebook

Synopsis

It’s time once again for our Composer Quiz: Name a famous American composer who was also a successful businessman. If you answered insurance executive Charles Ives, Jay will show you what's under the box. But if your answer was “John Alden Carpenter,” vice president of George B. Carpenter and Co., supplies and equipment dealer, we'll just pull back the curtain and show you all your prizes!

John Alden Carpenter was born in 1876 near Chicago, and, after studies out East, entered his father’s business back home, eventually becoming its vice president. Fortunately for the budding composer, the firm was largely run by his brothers, and he had enough free time to devote to his music. On today’s date in 1915, the Chicago Symphony premiered Carpenter’s first big orchestral work, the suite, Adventures in a Perambulator. (You get extra points if you knew a perambulator is a baby buggy.)

Anyway…

Carpenter's pram piece was a big success, and he wrote a string of other popular works, including a ballet based on the Krazy Kat comic strip of his day, and Skyscrapers, a jazzy and topical tribute to the transformation of urban America in the 1920s.

Unlike the unconventional Charles Ives, who toiled away in obscurity, the more conventional Carpenter was famous in his day. Ironically, while Ives’ fame only increased after his death in 1954, when Carpenter died in 1951, his music rapidly fell from fashion.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951): Adventrues in a Perambulator; National Symphony of Ukraine; John McLaughlin Williams, conductor; Naxos 8.559065

Synopsis

Russian émigré composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff was himself the soloist on today’s date in 1927 in the first performance of his Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Rachmaninoff had premiered his Concerto No. 3 in New York in 1909, and he’d been thinking about writing another one for over a decade. In the meantime, his life had been disrupted by both the Russian Revolution and the exhausting business of earning a living as a touring virtuoso pianist. In 1926, he finally felt he could afford to take some time off and put a Piano Concerto No. 4 down on paper.

In its original form, it turned out to be a much longer work than even Rachmaninoff thought practical. He joked to a friend that its movements would have to be “performed on successive nights, like Wagner’s Ring operas.”

He made a number of cuts before the Philadelphia premiere, but even so, the new work was not well received, and so he kept cutting. Audiences and critics still remained cool, and Rachmaninoff eventually shelved the work for a time — quite a time. In 1941 he prepared a “final cut” version, which ended up considerably shorter than his other three Piano Concertos, and recorded it with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Music Played in Today's Program

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 4; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Cleveland Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 458 930

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1972, a most unusual chamber work by American composer George Crumb had its premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Ideally, and “impractically” according to Crumb, it should have been heard, not in a concert hall in March … but in the open air … heard at a distance across a body of water, on a moonlit evening in August.

Vox Balaenae, which is Latin for The Voice of the Whale, is scored for three masked musicians, performing on electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano.

Crumb wrote, “The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask or visor-mask. The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature. I have also suggested that the work be performed under deep-blue stage lighting.”

In the opening of his piece, marked “Vocalise … from the beginning of time,” he quoted, with tongue firmly planted in masked cheek, the famous sunrise theme from Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra, used to great effect in the opening of the Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Crumb (b. 1929): Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale); Zizi Mueller, flute; Fred Sherry, cello; James Gemmell, piano; New World 357

Synopsis

A new opera by Jules Massenet had its premiere at the Paris Opera on today’s date in 1894. Thaïs and was based on a rather spicy novel of the same name by the popular French author of the day, Anatole France.

The novel and the opera are based on an old seventh-century manuscript, which mentions a fabulously beautiful Egyptian courtesan named Thaïs who converted to Christianity and spent the rest of her life meditating in seclusion on matters spiritual. In Massenet’s opera, the conversion from strip-tease artiste to nun is depicted by an instrumental interlude, the famous Meditation from Thaïs, which has become a favorite showpiece for solo violinists.

To add a dash of the piquant to the tale, in both the novel by Anatole France and in the opera by Massenet, the young monk who diligently convinces Thaïs to change her wicked ways suddenly falls madly in love with her himself, and just as diligently tries to persuade her to add just one more name — his — to her list of satisfied customers.

As they used to say in ancient Egypt: “Ooh-la-la!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Jules Massenet (1842-1912): Meditation from Thaïs; Nigel Kennedy, violin; English Chamber Orchestra; EMI 57330

Synopsis

The thick historical novels of 19th century French writer Alexandre Dumas, Sr. are packed with some fact and a lot of fiction. Chapter 22 of The Three Musketeers, for example, set during the 17th century reign of King Louis XIII, begins as follows:

“Nothing was talked of in Paris but the ball which the aldermen were to give to the king and queen in which their Majesties were to dance the famous La Merlaison — the favorite ballet of the king. Eight days had been spent preparing for the important evening. The city carpenters erected risers for the guests; the hall would be lit by two hundred huge candles of white wax, a luxury unheard of; and twenty violins were ordered, the price for them double the usual rate, since they would be playing all night.”

In this case, Dumas was referencing a real event.

On today’s date in 1635, at Chantilly castle, a gala ballet premiered. It depicted in stylized dance the Louis’ favorite activity: hunting the blackbird (“la merlaison” in French). The choreography, the costumes, and music were all created by the king — who also danced several of the lead roles.

It got a rave review in the press of the day. If there were any critics, we suspect Cardinal Richelieu, the dreaded power behind the throne in Dumas’ novel — and in real life — had them hauled off and “dealt with.”

Ah yes, it's good to be King.

Music Played in Today's Program

Louis XIII Roi de France (1601-1643): Ballet de la Merlaison; Ancient Instrument Ensemble of Paris; Jacques Chailley, conductor; Nonesuch LP H-71130