Composers Datebook

SynopsisWhile hardly twins, the String Quartets of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are often linked in the minds of music lovers and record companies. Admired today for their grace and sheer beauty, back when these quartets were first performed in Paris, reactions were quite different.Debussy’s work premiered on today’s date in 1893, played by the Ysaÿe Quartet. One critic wrote the music was “strange and bizarre, with too many echoes of the streets of Cairo and the gamelan.” The gamelan reference was a dig at Debussy’s enthusiasm for the Indonesian bronze gong ensemble that he — and many Europeans — heard for the first time at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which bought musical performers from around the globe to that city.Ravel completed his quartet ten years after Debussy’s. It’s dedicated to his teacher Gabriel Fauré, and was first played by the Heymann Quartet on March 5, 1904. Ravel submitted it to both the Prix de Rome and the Conservatoire de Paris. It was rejected by both institutions, and Fauré described the quartet’s last movement as “stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure.”Now if Debussy were a modern-day American, he might have sent Ravel a note saying: “I feel your pain” or “Been there, done that” — but what he actually wrote to Ravel was: “In the name of the gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note you have written in your quartet!”And you know what? Debussy was right.

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1910, the Metropolitan Opera premiered a new opera by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck, already famous for his opera Hansel and Gretel. This new opera was also a fairytale and titled Königskinder or The Royal Children.The female lead role of the Goose Girl was sung by Geraldine Farrar, admired back then for both her vocal and physical beauty. Farrar wasn’t scared of geese, either. She convinced both Humperdinck and Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met’s manager, to add a touch of verismo to the staging.In her autobiography, Farrar writes: “Humperdinck was not a little taken aback when I mentioned that I intended having live geese which were to move naturally and unconfined about the stage … The conductor was much perturbed and objected to the noise and confusion they might create; but Mr. Gatti was resigned to my whim … So with the help of … the ‘boys’ behind the stage I had as pretty a flock of birds as one could find on any farm. When the curtain rose upon that idyllic forest scene, with the goose girl in the grass, the geese unconcernedly picking their way about, now and again spreading snowy wings, unafraid, the [audience] was simply delighted and applauded long and vigorously.”Unlike Hansel and Gretel, Königskinder had an unhappy fairy-tale ending, and despite some really lovely music, it’s seldom staged these days — with or without live geese.Music Played in Today's ProgramEngelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921): Koenigskinder Excerpts

SynopsisIn the hands of a great performer, the violin can sing with the personality and intensity of a great opera singer. Pyrotechnics may dazzle, but nothing moves an audience as much as when a great violinist “sings” through his instrument.On today's date in 1896, a French audience in Nancy must has been so moved when great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe gave the first performance of this music: the Poème for Violin and Orchestra by Ernest Chausson. In addition to famous artists like Manet and Degas, Chausson counted among his friends many of the great musicians of his day, including Ysäye.Although they admired his work, Chausson was not always appreciated by the public. But when Ysaÿe premiered Chausson’s Poème in Paris in 1897, the applause went on and on. Used to just the opposite reaction, Chausson was stunned by his success, and, while thanking Ysaye profusely, kept repeating to himself: “I just can’t believe it!”Modern-day violinist Joshua Bell was the inspiration for this songful contemporary work by Aaron Jay Kernis. Air for Violin was originally composed for violin and piano, and premiered in 1995 by Bell. He recorded it the following year with the Minnesota Orchestra.Music Played in Today's ProgramErnest Chausson (1855-1899) Poème; Isaac Stern, violin; Orchestre de Paris; Daniel Barenboim, conductor. CBS/Sony 64501Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) Air for Violin; Minnesota Orchestra; Joshua Bell, violin; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 460 226

SynopsisOn this day in 1926, Walter Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony in the first performance of the last major orchestral work of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius — his symphonic tone poem Tapiola. The title refers to an ancient Finnish forest god, Tapio, and the music suggests an ancient mystery culminating in a burst of terrifying savagery.After receiving the score, Damrosch wrote this note of appreciation to the composer: “No one but a Norseman could have written this work. We were all enthralled by the dark pine forests and the shadowy gods and wood nymphs who dwell therein. The coda with its icy winds sweeping through the forest made us shiver.” Today the commission fee Damrosch paid Sibelius for this orchestral masterpiece makes us shiver: Sibelius was paid only $400.At this point in his career, Sibelius was afflicted by intense self-doubt. He wrote in his diary: “I have suffered because of Tapiola … was I really cut out for this sort of thing? Going downhill. Can’t be alone. Drinking whiskey. Physically not strong enough for all this…”For the next 30 years and more, Sibelius lived in retirement, drinking heavily, and though rumors persisted that he was still writing music, no scores were discovered after his death.Music Played in Today's ProgramJean Sibelius (1865-1957): Tapiola; Helsinki Philharmonic; Paavo Berglund, conductor; EMI 68646

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1937, as a Christmas gift to the nation, the NBC radio network broadcast the first NBC Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The orchestra had been specifically created to lure the famous Italian conductor back to America.For the first selection on his first concert, Toscanini chose what was then an obscure piece an obscure Italian composer named Antonio Vivaldi: his Concerto Grosso No. 11, to be exact.These days we are used to hearing Baroque music in “historically informed performances,” “hip” for short, and often played on period instruments. By those standards, Toscanini’s Vivaldi might be described as “pre-historic,” but in 1937 it must have seemed a shockingly hip selection: a bracing, bold shot of unfamiliar Baroque music by a composer rarely — if ever — heard on a symphony concert.In fact, one might argue that Toscanini was trying to be “historically informed,” since he probably used a score prepared by the Italian musicologist and composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, based on manuscripts and original editions of Vivaldi’s music found in the library of the Liceo Musicale in Venice, where Malipiero taught in the 1930s and Vivaldi lived in the 1730s.Music Played in Today's ProgramAntonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Concerto Grosso No. 11; NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor (r. Dec. 25, 1937)