Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1912, Maurice Ravel’s ballet Daphnis et Chloé received its first performance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, staged by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and choreographed by Michel Fokine.

Three years earlier, Diaghilev had approached Ravel about composing a ballet, and Ravel started working with Fokine on a scenario based on an old Greek pastoral romance about two lovers separated by pirates and reunited by the intervention of the god Pan.

Ravel was a meticulous and slow worker, and his score for Daphnis et Chloé ended up taking three years to complete. By the time of its 1912 premiere, internal squabbles in the Diaghilev company and conceptual differences between composer and choreographer had dampened everyone's enthusiasm for the project. Even Diaghilev seemed to lose interest.

In his memoirs, Pierre Monteux, the conductor of the first performance, recalled, “At first Diaghilev had been very enthusiastic with Ravel’s magnificent score, but for some reason, which I have always thought was due to the weakness of the choreography, his fervor for Ravel and his music diminished to such a low pitch that it became difficult to work as we should have on the premiere.”

Monteux continued, “But all the musicians in the orchestra, and I might say all the musicians in Paris, knew that this was Maurice Ravel’s greatest work.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Daphnis et Chloe; London Symphony; Pierre Monteux, conductor; London 425 956

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1945 Peter Grimes, a new opera by English composer Benjamin Britten, debuted at Sadler’s Wells Theater in London. The libretto was based on George Crabbe’s long poem, The Borough, published in 1810, which described life along England’s North Sea coast.

In the early 1940’s, Britten was living in America, and had read Crabbe’s poem in California. The commission for the opera was also American, coming from Serge Koussevitzky, conductor of the Boston Symphony and one of the leading music patrons of the day.

But his opera is intensely English — evoking, as it does, the images and sounds of the North Sea off the east coast of Suffolk. He was born within sight of this seascape, and lived, for the better part of his later life, a little farther down the coast at Aldeburgh — the borough on which Crabbe had based his poem.

From the start, Peter Grimes was an immediate success. Within a week of its June 7 premiere, Britten conducted the London Philharmonic in an orchestral suite of Sea Interludes from his new opera, and these, too, have since firmly established themselves in the concert repertory.

Music Played in Today's Program

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes; London Symphony; André Previn, conductor; EMI 72658

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1727, the opera season in London ended early when rival Italian prima donnas, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, came to blows on stage during a performance of an opera by Bononcini.

Londoners were shocked, but not surprised. Trouble had been brewing between the two, egged on by partisan behavior from their rabid English fans, who (depending on their preference) greeted them with either extravagant applause and bravos, or catcalls, hissing and, as one contemporary put it, “other great indecencies.”

It was all terrific for the box office, as Handel must have realized and so worked their rivalry into his opera Alessandro, in which the hero finds it hard to decide between the attractions of the dueling divas. He prudently gave exactly the same number of solos to each soprano.

Even so, according to Handel’s first biographer, years earlier he had threatened to toss Cuzzoni out the window when, during a rehearsal she refused point blank to sing one of his arias. “Madam,” he is quoted as roaring as he dragged her towards the window, “I know you are a veritable devil, but I would have you know that I am Beelzebub, the king of all the devils!”

Music Played in Today's Program

George Frederic Handel (1685-1759): “Aria” from Alessandro; Lisa Saffer, soprano; Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Nicholas McGegan, conductor; Harmonia Mundi 90.7036

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1998 at King’s Chapel in Boston, a new work by American composer Daniel Pinkham received its first performance. Scored for baritone and organ, Three Latin Motets was intended as a birthday offering to Pinkham’s fellow composer and colleague Ned Rorem, with a dedication that read, “For Ned Rorem and a half century of friendship.”

But the premiere occurred on the Pinkham’s 75th birthday, as a surprise at a concert in his honor. Organist James David Christie and baritone Sanford Sylvan had sneakily persuaded him to write the motets for Rorem, who was born in 1923 — the same year as Pinkham — but intended all along to premiere the music as a surprise at a concert in his honor.

He was noted for his church music, and once quipped, “I just like to hear my pieces more than once, and when you write music for the church you have a better chance at that … I [tell people] am available for weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.”

Pinkham died in 2006, and Christie and Sylvan performed Three Latin Motets once again in January of 2007 — at Pinkham’s memorial service.

Music Played in Today's Program

Daniel Pinkham (1923-2006): Three Latin Motets; Aaron Engebreth, baritone; Heinrich Christensen, organ; Florestan FRP-1003

Synopsis

In the early years of the 20th century, a hauntingly beautiful piece of Grecian sculpture — a bust of the head of the goddess Aphrodite — was donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Art. There it inspired this orchestral work by Boston composer George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick’s symphonic tone poem Aphrodite was, in the words of the composer, “an attempt to suggest in music the poetic and tragic scenes which may have passed before the sightless eyes of such a goddess.”

Chadwick composed this music during East Coast holidays on Martha’s Vineyard, inspired, he said, by the play of light and wind on the sea before him. It received its premiere at the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut on this date in 1912.

On today’s date in 1999, at a summer musical festival on the opposite coast of America, another musical work inspired by ancient Greece received its first performance. Five Images after Sappho was inspired by texts of ancient Greek poetess Sappho and written for the remarkable voice of American soprano Dawn Upshaw. It was premiered at the Ojai Festival in California, and was written by Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931): Aphrodite; Brno State Philharmonic; Jose Serebrier, conductor; Reference 74

Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958): Five Images after Sappho; Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 89158