SynopsisOn today's date in 1950, the orchestra of the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla, California gave the premiere performance of this music by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. The Sinfonietta La Jolla was Martinu's response to the Society’s call for a tuneful and approachable piece of new music for their chamber orchestra.Martinu modeled his 20th century work on the 18th century symphonies of Haydn, a composer he very much admired. In fact, in 1890, when Martinu was born, his native Bohemia was still a part of the Austria-Hungarian empire in which Haydn had lived and worked a hundred years earlier.Martinu’s music blends the modernism of 20th century composers like Stravinsky with the rich 19th century tradition of Czech national composers like Dvořák — but Martinu’s relations with his native land were anything but smooth. He was twice kicked out of the Prague Conservatory for his supposed lack of academic discipline, and instead established himself as a freelance composer in France and Switzerland. Then, just as his music began to receive some recognition and performances back in Prague, the Nazi invasion of World War II led to his works being banned.In 1941, Martinu settled in the United States, where his music was very well received. In 1948, Martinu returned briefly to Prague, but found the new Communist government there as distasteful to him as the Nazis. Martinu’s Sinfonietta La Jolla was written shortly after he returned to the United States.Music Played in Today's ProgramBohuslav Martinu (1890-1959): Sinfonietta “La Jolla”; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Christopher Hogwood, conductor; London 433 660
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'Twilight Butterfly' by Thomas
SynopsisEach summer, music lovers congregate about 25 miles north of downtown Chicago for the annual Ravinia Festival, the oldest outdoor music festival in America, and since 1936 the summer home of the Chicago Symphony.But on today’s date in 2013, Ravinia was the venue for world-premiere performances of several new art songs, including Twilight Butterfly, by American composer Augusta Read Thomas, a setting of a poetic text written by the composer herself.“The poetic is always in my music”, she explained. “In writing Twilight Butterfly … I began with a mental picture … [of] someone, viewing a butterfly fluttering on a deep summer evening beneath the twilight moon. This imagery became so specific that writing my own lyrics was almost inescapable.”Now even at their most poetic, composers must keep practical considerations in mind, as Thomas explained:“Beyond the evocative, impressionist nature of the piece … I sought to provide a comfortable performance environment for the singer. My lyrics integrate words whose open vowel sounds suit the voice ... The piano gives the singer pitches at every entrance … [and] rubato indications allow the singer delicate rhythmic and interpretive flexibility.”Music Played in Today's ProgramAugusta Read Thomas (b. 1964): Twilight Butterfly; Yvonne Redman, soprano; Julie Gunn, piano; Nimbus 6306
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Bernstein in Hollywood
SynopsisElia Kazan’s film, On the Waterfront, a 1954 black and white classic starring Marlon Brando, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It was also nominated for — but didn’t win — that year’s Oscar for best original score. It was Leonard Bernstein’s first film score, and his last. He didn’t enjoy the experience:“I had become so involved in each detail of the score, that it seemed to me the most important part of the picture. I had to keep reminding myself that it really is the least important part,” Bernstein recalled. “Sometimes the music would be turned off completely to allow a line to stand forth stark and bare, and then be turned on again. Sometimes the music, planned as a composition with a beginning, middle and end, would be silenced seven bars before the end … And so the composer sits by, protesting as he can, but ultimately accepting with a heavy heart the inevitable loss of a good part of the score. Everyone tries to comfort you. ‘You can always use it in a suite.’ Cold comfort. It’s good for the picture, you repeat numbly to yourself … it’s good for the picture.”But Bernstein did fashion a concert suite from On the Waterfront and, not one to waste time, conducted the first performance with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood on today’s date in 1954, exactly two weeks after the film opened.Music Played in Today's ProgramLeonard Bernstein (1918-1990): On the Waterfront Suite; Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 415 253
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Two by Mozart
SynopsisOn today’s date, Wolfgang Mozart completed two of his most famous works: on August 10, 1787, the Serenade known as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and, on the same day 10 years later, the Jupiter Symphony — Mozart’s Symphony No. 41.Despite the fame of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik — which translates as A Little Night Music — nothing is known for certain about the circumstances of its composition. Since a Serenade is a suite of orchestral movements normally written as background music for some rich patron’s patio party, we can assume Eine Kleine filled such a function some pleasant evening in Vienna. We can only hope the patrons appreciated what they got for their money.Hardly any more is known about the composition of Mozart’s final symphony, the Jupiter, as no relevant letters or documents survive from this period of his life. The Jupiter nickname appears to have originated years later in London. In Germany it was just called “the symphony with the fugal finale.”There’s a classic recording of Mozart’s symphony favorites featuring the Marlboro Festival Orchestra with Pablo Casals conducting. The Marlboro Festival is held each summer for seven weeks in a cluster of old farm buildings on a hilltop in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Talented young professional musicians from all over the country gather here, principally to study, secondly to perform, for audiences eager to hear both the emerging and established Marlboro musicians.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; EMI Classics 65690 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter); Marlboro Festival Orchestra; Pablo Casals, conductor; CBS/Sony 47294
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Berlioz, Beatrice and Benedict
SynopsisIn the 19th century, the German spa town of Baden-Baden was the place to be in the summer. Wealthy international tourists could bathe in artesian wells by day, and by night, gamble at the casino or attend performances at a splendid theater modeled on the Paris Opera.That theater opened on today’s date in 1862 with the premiere of a new comic opera by French composer Hector Berlioz, based closely on Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, titled Beatrice and Benedict after the witty pair of lovers in the play. The composer conducted.“A great success … applauded from beginning to end. I was recalled to the stage I don’t know how many times,” Berlioz wrote the next day. Despite the success, he confessed, “My infernal neuralgia was so bad that I mounted the podium … without feeling the slightest emotion. This bizarre indifference meant I conducted better than usual!”Despite making light of his increasing illness, possibly Crohn’s Disease, this opera proved to be his last work, and Berlioz had only a few more years to live. His biographer David Cairns wrote: “Listening to the score’s exuberant gaiety, only momentarily touched by sadness, one would never guess that its composer was in pain when he wrote it and impatient for death.”Music Played in Today's ProgramHector Berlioz (1803-1869): Beatrice and Benedict Overture; Boston Symphony; Charles Munch, conductor; RCA Victor Gold Seal 61400
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
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