Composers Datebook

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

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1942, on a radio broadcast by the NBC Symphony, 75-year-old Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini led a performance of El Salón Mexico by 41-year-old American composer Aaron Copland. Copland, who attended the performance, was amazed to see that Toscanini knew his score by heart, apparently unaware that the extremely nearsighted Toscanini always memorized the scores he conducted.

After the performance, Copland was invited backstage to the Green Room to meet Toscanini. “He addressed me as ‘maestro.’ That was a shock. It was rather fun to be addressed as ‘maestro’ by the maestro. But Toscanini seemed disturbed. I wondered what was bothering him and apparently the rhythmic complications of my piece had caused him considerable headache, trying to remember all these changes of rhythms in the piece by heart, and made him a little unsure of his memory,” he recalled

Years later, among Toscanini’s papers, a copy of Copland’s score was found, written out in Toscanini’s own hand, from first note to last, apparently made as an aide to — or test of — his memory. Copland asked Toscanini’s son Walter for a photocopy, and it remained one of his prized possessions.

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): El Salòn Mèxico; NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor

Synopsis

It might seem farfetched that Winona Ryder, Emma Watson and Charles Ives might have anything in common, but there is a connection of sorts: Ryder appeared in a 1994 film based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic 19th century novel, Little Women, Emma Watson appears in the 2019 remake and, in 1913, American composer Charles Ives composed “The Alcotts,” the second movement of his Concord Sonata for piano, which evokes Louisa May, her novel and her real-life family and friends, who included the New England Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau.

Set during the American Civil War, Alcott’s Little Women chronicles the coming of age of four young women in Concord, Massachusetts. The story of has charmed readers and film-goers around the world. Ives’s music, like Alcott’s novel, is nostalgic, affectionate, and quietly powerful.

Contemporary American composer, Mark Adamo, crafted an opera based on Alcott’s Little Women which premiered on today’s date in 1998 at the Opera Studio of Houston Grand Opera. After its premiere, that company’s general director, David Gockley, pronounced Adamo’s opera “destined to become an American classic,” and since its successful Houston Opera revival in 2000, Adamo’s Little Women has been staged again and again, to equal acclaim from audiences and critics.

Music Played in Today's Program

Charles Ives (1874-1954): The Alcotts from Concord Sonata; Anthony de Mare, piano; CRI 837

Mark Adamo (b. 1962): Little Women; Houston Grand Opera; Patrick Summers, conductor; Ondine 988

Synopsis

The stage directions read: “The garden of the Grimaldi Palace outside Genoa. On the left side, the palace, directly in front, the sea. Dawn is breaking.”

The evocative music is by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, the prelude to his opera Simon Boccanegra, which premiered on today’s date in 1857 in Venice.

Despite its shimmering prelude, his new opera was not well received. The critics felt it was one of those works which “does not make its effect immediately … It is written with the utmost exquisite craftsmanship but needs to be studied in all its details.”

Verdi, a practical man of the theater, knew what that sort of review really meant. He wrote: “I thought I’d done something passable, but it seems I was mistaken. The score is not possible as it stands. It is too sad, too depressing. I shall need to redo it to give it more contrast and variety, more life.”

The revised version of Simon Boccanegra premiered 24 years later, in 1881, with additions and alterations to the story by Arrigo Boito, the brilliant librettist for Verdi’s final operas, Otello and Falstaff.

Despite the revisions, Boccanegra remained one of the least popular of Verdi’s works for many decades. In the 1930s, it was revised successfully at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with an all-star cast, and since then, audiences have had more opportunities to study Verdi’s score sufficiently to appreciate its “exquisite craftsmanship, contrast, variety and life.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Simon Boccanegra; La Scala Chorus and Orchestra; Claudio Abbado, conductor; DG 449 752

Synopsis

Today’s date marks the birth anniversaries of two major 20th century American composers: Carl Ruggles was born in East Marion, Massachusetts on today’s date in 1876, and Henry Cowell, in Menlo Park, California in 1897.

Ruggles was a tough old bird, who wrote a small handful of tough, uncompromising musical works. He was the conductor of a symphony orchestra in Winona, Minnesota from 1908-1912, a teacher at the University of Miami from 1937-1943, and a talented painter to boot. His first music to be performed in public was A Voice Crying in the Wilderness, an apt description of Ruggles himself, a crusty loner who once claimed the only man he ever met who could out-swear him was his friend and colleague Charles Ives. He eventually retired to an old schoolhouse in Arlington, Vermont.

Ruggles’ striking orchestral works, with titles like Sun-Treader and Men and Mountains, are occasionally revived, but he remains just a name for most 21st-century concert-goers.

Henry Cowell was a much more genial, out-going sort: a composer, performer and teacher who wrote a great deal of music, ranging from the dissonant and experimental to the beguilingly lyrical. He was an early apostle of what we now call world music, and in 1956 undertook a world tour, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and the US State Department, which included lengthy stays in Iran, India and Japan, and resulted in him writing a number of musical works incorporating ideas and musical instruments from those countries.

Music Played in Today's Program

Carl Ruggles (1897-1971): Sun-Treader; Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; Cleveland Orchestra 75th Anniversary CD Edition 093-75

Henry Cowell (1897-1965): Homage to Iran; Leopold Avakian, violin; Mitchell Andrews, piano; Basil Bahar, Persian drum CRI 836