Composers Datebook

• A sequel by Berlioz

  SynopsisThese days, no one is surprised if a popular film generates a series of sequels or even prequels, but back in the 1830s the idea of a composer coming up with a sequel to a symphony must have seemed a little odd. But that odd idea did pop into the head of French composer Hector Berlioz.In 1830, Berlioz had a huge hit with his Symphonie Fantastique. That Fantastic Symphony told a story through music, based on the composer’s own real-life, unrequited love for a British Shakespearian actress. The story ends badly, with our hero trying to end it all with a dose of opium, which, while not killing him, does produce, well, “fantastic” nightmares in which he is condemned to death for killing his beloved who reappears at a grotesque witches’ sabbath.That seems a hard act to follow, but two years later, Berlioz produced a musical sequel: Lelio, or the Return to Life, which premiered in Paris on today’s date in 1832. In this, our hero awakes from his drug-induced nightmare, and, with a little help from Shakespeare and a kind of 10-step arts-based recovery program, rededicates his life to music.Berlioz intended the original and the sequel to be performed together as a kind of double-feature. Alas, while audiences thrill to the lurid Symphonie Fantastique, they tend to drift during the admirable, but rather boring rehab sequel, which is rarely performed.Music Played in Today's ProgramHector Berlioz (1803-1869): Fantasy on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ from Lelio London Symphony; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 64103

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• Beethoven and Kernis in a somber mood

  SynopsisOn this date in 1813, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 was played for the first time in Vienna. The occasion was a benefit concert in honor of the Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had died fighting Napoleon, with the concert's proceeds donated to their widows and orphans.At its first rehearsal, some of the musicians found the part writing of the new work intimidating. A friend of Beethoven’s who sat in on rehearsals later recalled: “the violin players refused to play a passage and rebuked [Beethoven] for writing difficulties that were incapable of performance. But Beethoven begged the gentlemen to take the parts home with them. If they were to practice it at home it would surely go. The next day the passage went excellently, and the gentlemen themselves seemed to rejoice that they had given Beethoven such pleasure.” The slow movement of Beethoven’s symphony so pleased the Viennese audience at its premiere that it had to be encored.On today’s date in 1980, a private tragedy also prompted music. On December 8 that year, ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City. American composer Aaron Jay Kernis was then a student at the Manhattan School of Music, living not far from where Lennon was slain. The death moved Kernis to reshape elements of Lennon’s song “Imagine” into an altogether new work for cello and piano: Meditation (in memory of John Lennon).Music Played in Today's ProgramLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Vienna Philharmonic; Carlos Kleiber, conductor; DG 447 400Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960): Meditation (in memory of John Lennon); Eberli Ensemble; Phoenix 142

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• The New York Phil and Pearl Harbor

  SynopsisMaybe you’re one of those die-hard classical music fans who records your favorite orchestra’s radio broadcasts. Starting in the 1950s, home tape recorders made it easy to record off the air, and the arrival of cassette recorders in the 1960s made it more affordable.But in the 1930s and 40s, you had to be pretty darn wealthy to afford home recording equipment, which was bulky and only able to record about 14 minutes at a time on to 16-inch vinyl discs. One such home recordist was Dr. Edwin L. Gardner of Minneapolis, who, on today’s date in 1941 was recording a Sunday afternoon New York Philharmonic broadcast of the first symphony by Shostakovich and the second piano concerto by Brahms.Dr. Gardner was probably annoyed by the first news flash which interrupted the Shostakovich symphony: a U.S. Army transport carrying lumber had been torpedoed 1300 miles west of San Francisco. But Gardner kept recording, even during the preempted intermission of the Philharmonic broadcast devoted to the first reports of the devastating Japanese attack at the U.S. Navy’s base in Pearl Harbor.And so, in addition to capturing most of the Shostakovich and Brahms he set out to record, Dr. Gardner also captured in real time a dramatic moment in American history.Music Played in Today's ProgramDmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 88697683652

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• Brubeck's birthday

  SynopsisToday marks the anniversary of the birth of American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920, he would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time — and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical music.Brubeck studied with Schoenberg and Milhaud, and in the late 1940s and ‘50s formed a jazz quartet incorporating Baroque-style counterpoint and unusual time signatures into a style that came to be known as “West Coast” or “cool” jazz, culminating in the 1960 release of a landmark jazz album for Columbia Records, Time Out. This album produced two Hit Parade singles: Blue Rondo à la Turk and Take Five. Ironically, he had to fight to convince Columbia to release an album composed totally of original material with no familiar standards to help sales!In addition to works for chamber-sized jazz combos, Brubeck has written a number of large-scale sacred works, among them a 1975 Christmas Choral Pageant, La Fiesta de la Posada, or, The Festival of the Inn.Originally written to celebrate the restoration of a Spanish mission in California, it wound up being premiered in Hawaii by the Honolulu Symphony. Since its premiere, La Fiesta de la Posada has been performed by both professional and amateur ensembles, ranging from symphony orchestras to mariachi bands. Its premiere recording was made by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting.Music Played in Today's ProgramDave Brubeck (1920-2012): Blue Rondo a la Turk; The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Columbia 40585Dave Brubeck: La Fiesta del Posada; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Columbia Legacy 64669

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• Janáček's 'Glagolitic'

  SynopsisSo what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you’re Moravian-born composer Leoš Janáček, you call it Glagolitic, since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that.The idea came from a clerical friend who complained about the lack of original religious music in Czechoslovakia and suggested Janáček’s do something about it. His Glagolitic Mass premiered in Brno on today’s date in 1927. One reviewer wrote it was “a marvelous religious work of an old composer” — to which Janacek snapped back: “I am not old. And I am certainly not religious!”Now, people do say “you’re only as old as you feel,” and 73-year old Janáček had for many years been in love with a much younger woman who inspired his best works, and rather than any religious convictions, Janacek told another reporter that the piece was in fact jump-started by an electrical storm he witnessed and described as follows: ‘It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it … I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ‘Gospodi pomiluj’ [Love have mercy] and nothing more than the joyous shout ‘Slava, Slava!’ [Glory].”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeoš Janáček (1854-1928): Glagolitic Mass; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; DG 429182

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