Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1948, at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall, the London Symphony gave the premiere performance of the Serenade in G Major by British composer Ernest John Moeran. He was born in 1894 in London, but Ireland became his adopted home and musical inspiration during the last decades of his life.

Moeran was fascinated by folksongs, and his method of collecting them was to sit in a country pub and wait until an old man started singing. He would note down the song and ask for more. In the 1920s, he became drinking companion of another British composer, music critic, and fellow folk song aficionado Peter Warlock, a talented but rather notorious character who was the model for the outrageously Bohemian composer depicted in Anthony Powell’s string of novels, A Dance to the Music of Time.

Warlock’s most famous work was his Capriol Suite, an affectionate reworking of Renaissance tunes, and Moeran’s serenade, similar in tone, was perhaps a tribute to his old boon companion. This proved to be his last major work, as he died suddenly two years later, at 55, in his beloved Ireland.

Music Played in Today's Program

E.J. Moeran (1894-1950): Serenade in G; Northern Sinfonietta of England; Richard Hickox, conductor; EMI 74991-2

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1785, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dedicated six of his string quartets to his friend and older colleague, Joseph Haydn. Earlier that year, Haydn heard some of them performed in Vienna. Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, was also present, and must have been elated when Haydn said, “Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.”

Mozart’s quartets were published by Viennese firm Artaria and generated some much-needed income for Wolfgang. Whether they made money for their publisher as well is another matter. Three years later, one of Mozart’s lesser contemporaries, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, offered Artaria six of his string quartets at the same price they paid Mozart, with a note that read, “I am certain you will do better with my quartets than you did with Mozart’s, which deserve the highest praise, but which, because of their overwhelming and unrelenting artfulness, are not to everyone’s taste.”

Apparently Mozart’s quartets were deemed too “brainy” for public taste. Well, Dittersdorf may have sold better in the 1780’s, but these days performers and audiences find Mozart’s “unrelenting artfulness” more to their taste than Dittersdorf’s sugary confections.

Music Played in Today's Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): String Quartet; Emerson String Quartet; DG 439 861

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799): String Quartet No. 4; Gewandhaus Quartet; Berlin Classics 9261

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1933, the Philadelphia Orchestra was performing at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. Conductor Alexander Smallens led the world premiere performance of a new work by 23-year-old composer Samuel Barber. It was his first orchestral composition to have a major public hearing, but oddly enough, young Mr. Barber himself was not in attendance.

He was in Europe that summer, and so missed the premiere of his overture to The School for Scandal, a musical romp inspired by the 18th century English Restoration comedy of the same name by Richard Sheridan.

Even before he had left the Curtis Institute of Music, where he pursued a triple major in piano, composition, and voice, Barber had begun winning prizes that enabled him to study abroad. Until the outbreak of World War II, Barber’s musical career was quite Eurocentric.

His School for Scandal overture, in fact, was written in Italy in 1931. Barber’s Symphony No. 1 premiered in Rome in 1936, and the following year was played by the Vienna Philharmonic at the 1937 Salzburg Music Festival. That led to stateside performances and commissions from conductors like Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini.

Music Played in Today's Program

Samuel Barber (1910-1981): School for Scandal overture; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 436 288

Synopsis

Say the phrase “BBC Proms” to most music lovers, and they’ll conjure up a mental image of the rowdy “Last Night of the Proms” at which normally staid and reserved Britons don funny hats and make rude noises during Henry Wood’s arrangement of British sailor songs. But the raucous “Last Night of the Proms” is only the festive finale of several weeks of fairly serious music making: dozens of concerts covering a wide range of old and new music

From the very beginning of the Proms in 1895, Wood, who started the whole thing, had this specific agenda: “I am going to run nightly concerts to train the public in easy stages,” he explained. “Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.”

On today’s date in 1996, for example, violinist Gidon Kremer premiered a violin concerto by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at a Proms concert. The work had an unusual title — Grail Theater. “I like the unusual combination of these two words because it represents two such different things. One is the search for the Grail, and the other the theatrical aspect,” she explained.

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750) arr. Henry Wood: Toccata and Fugue in D minor; BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor; Teldec 97868

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023): Grail Theatre; Gidon Kremer, violin; BBC Symphony; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony Classical 60817

Synopsis

The life story of George Gershwin usually runs something like this: an incredible string of successes cut short by Gershwin’s tragically early death. But on today’s date in 1922, Gershwin suffered one of his rare flops when his one-act opera Blue Monday opened and closed on the same day.

For five years, beginning in 1920, Gershwin had provided the music for an annual Broadway revue, The George White Scandals. The impresario Mr. White provided the money and the leggy showgirls; Gershwin provided the catchy tunes and light-hearted dances.

But in 1922, Gershwin was eager to try something different: a modern, jazz-age version of an Italian verismo opera. The plot was simple: he does her wrong, and then she shoots him. The reviews were devastatingly bad — one critic suggesting the soprano with the pistol should have shot the rest of the cast before anyone had a chance to sing.

And so White pulled Blue Monday from his revue before it could have a second performance. A concert revival by the Paul Whiteman band at Carnegie Hall in 1925, and a 1953 CBS-TV production didn’t fare all that much better.

Even today Blue Monday is rarely staged.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Gershwin (1898-1937): Blue Monday; Cincinnati Pops; Erich Kunzel, conductor; Telarc 80434