Composers Datebook

• Haydn at Esterhazy

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1773, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa was visiting the country estate of Prince Nikolaus of Esterhazy. Among the attractions there were an opera house, a marionette theater, and the prince’s impressive chamber orchestra led by Franz Joseph Haydn.It’s possible that Haydn’s Symphony No. 48 was performed for the Empress — in any case, this symphony came to be nicknamed the Maria Theresa. We do know that Haydn and his orchestra did perform for the empress — and that they were all dressed up in Chinese costumes for one performance during her visit! Among other “duties as assigned,” Haydn shot three wild game hens that were cooked up for the Empress’s dinner. Ah, the life of a court musician in the 18th century!It’s also reported that Haydn told the empress an amusing story from his childhood in Vienna. Apparently repair work was being done on St. Stephens Cathedral when Haydn was a boy soprano in the Cathedral Choir. The empress was annoyed at the racket made by choirboys playing on the scaffolding and ordered that the next one caught playing up there would get a spanking. The following day Haydn climbed the scaffold, was caught, and received the promised punishment.Apparently they both got a good laugh out of recalling the story.Music Played in Today's ProgramFranz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): Symphony No. 48 (Maria Theresa); Polish Chamber Orchestra; Jerzy Maksymiuk, conductor; EMI Classics 69767

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• Pachelbel and his 'Canon'

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 17th century Germany, a baby boy was christened who would grow up to be one of the leading composers and organists of his time. No, it wasn’t Johann Sebastian Bach — although the child we’re discussing here would become the teacher of the teacher of J.S. Bach and did serve as godfather to one J.S. Bach’s older relations.It was Johann Pachelbel who was baptized on today’s date in Nuremberg in 1653. He was a famous musician in his day, but after his death in 1706, Pachelbel would be pretty much forgotten until late in the 20th century, when an orchestral arrangement of a little chamber piece that he’d written — Pachelbel’s Canon would suddenly become an unexpected hit. In 1979, the American composer George Rochberg even included a set of variations on Pachelbel’s Canon as the third movement of his own String Quartet No. 6.Like Bach, some of Pachelbel’s children also became composers, and one of them, Karl Teodorus Pachelbel, emigrated from Germany to the British colonies of North America. As “Charles Theodore Pachelbel,” he became an important figure in the musical life of early 18th century Boston and Charleston, where he died in 1750, the same year as J.S. Bach. Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Rochberg (1918-2005): Variations on Pachelbel’s Canon, from String Quartet No. 6; Concord Quartet; New World 80551

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• Weill's 'Three-Penny Opera' in Berlin

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1928, Kurt Weill’s Three Penny Opera, whose cast members portrayed thieves, murderers,and sex workers, debuted at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin.The Three-Penny Opera was a 20th century updating of The Beggar’s Opera, a satirical 18th century British ballad-opera by John Gay. A new German text was provided by playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill provided a jazzy score.The opera was a smash success in Berlin, and within a year was taken up by theaters all over Europe. But in 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, all performances of The Three Penny Opera were banned, since Weill was Jewish and Brecht was a communist sympathizer.Just as it was being banned in Germany, its 1933 American premiere in New York was a flop, and the show closed after only a dozen performances. It wasn’t until 1952 that it was successfully revived in America. With a new English translation by the American composer Marc Bliztstein, The Three Penny Opera was reintroduced by Leonard Bernstein at a Music Festival at Brandeis University, and in 1954 reopened off-broadway in Greenwich Village to sold-out houses and rave reviews.Music Played in Today's ProgramKurt Weill (1900-1950): Three Penny Opera; Suite Canadian Chamber Ensemble; Raffi Armenian, conductor; CBC 5010

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• Sousa gets stiffed in Minneapolis

  SynopsisIt was on this day in 1929 that a new march by John Philip Sousa was played for the first time — once — and then promptly forgotten until almost 60 years later. The Foshay Tower Washington Memorial March was commissioned by Wilbur Foshay, a high-flying Minneapolis businessman of the Roaring 20s who fell victim to the stock market crash and criminal charges of mail fraud.One of his extravagant projects was the Foshay Tower he built in downtown Minneapolis, a building shaped like the Washington Monument. The building still stands, with Foshay’s name carved in huge letters on all sides of the obelisk, now renovated as a historic site. In the lobby hangs Wilbur Foshay’s portrait, along with the score of Sousa’s march, which the March King himself conducted in Minneapolis on today’s date in 1929.Soon after Foshay’s empire of public utilities, factories and banks crumbled to dust, and he was convicted of fraud, spending two years and eleven months in Leavenworth prison. Not surprisingly, John Philip Sousa never got paid for his commission. He considered giving it a new name: The Washington Memorial March, but then decided to withdraw the piece completely, and the music was not published or performed again until 1988.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Philip Sousa (1854-1932): Foshay Tower (Washington Memorial) March; Great American Main Street Band; Timothy Foley, conductor; EMI/Angel 54130

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• John Cage at Woodstock

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1952, at the aptly named Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York, pianist David Tudor premiered two new works by the American composer John Cage.The first, Water Music, was scored for a “prepared piano” — a piano into whose metal strings various items had been inserted to alter its sound — plus a duck call and transistor radio. For the second work, Tudor simply closed the lid of the piano, set a stopwatch for the length of the work’s four sections — 4 minutes and 33 seconds to be exact – and then sat quietly on the piano bench. The composition consisted of whatever sounds occurred in that amount of time at that particular moment in time, including any breathing, coughing or snickering from the audience.Some likened the piece to the all-white canvases of the avant-garde painter Robert Rauschenberg, on which accidental aspects of dust or bumps in the canvas created an arbitrary texture. Others thought it an outrageous affront at worst, or a bad joke at best. Whatever else one might think of it, as pianist David Tudor put it, “Cage’s 4:33 is one of the most intense listening experiences one can have.”Cage once said, “I’m interested in making sounds that I don't understand,” and insisted that random, unplanned sounds were as welcome to his ears as those he organized himself, as in this Cage piece for prepared piano, Mysterious Adventure.Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Cage (1912-1992): Nos. 5 and 12, from Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano; Robert Miller, piano; New World 80203

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