Composers Datebook

Synopsis

If you Google “Verdi” and “Royal Albert Hall,” you’ll probably be directed to a fine Italian restaurant named after the famous Italian opera composer that is located in that famous British concert venue, but back in 1875 the combination of Verdi and the Royal Albert Hall meant not a hot meal — but a hot ticket — for Londoners.

On today’s date that year a chorus of over 1000 and an orchestra of 150 assembled at Royal Albert Hall to give the U.K. premiere of Verdi’s Requiem Mass, a brand-new sacred work to be conducted by the composer himself.

Verdi’s “Requiem” had received its world premiere performance almost exactly one year earlier — on May 22, 1874 to be exact — at the Church of San Marco in Milan, a performance also conducted by the composer. Although it was premiered in a church, just three days later Verdi brought his Requiem to Milan’s La Scala opera house and cast the lead singers from his latest opera Aida as its four vocal soloists.

Commentators ever since have noted shared musical similarities of mood, color, and drama in these two works, and quipped Verdi’s “Requiem” might just be his greatest opera.

Music Played in Today's Program

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): “Sanctus” from Requiem; Monteverdi Choir; Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique; John Eliot Gardner, conductor; Decca 441142

Synopsis

Today marks the birthday of one of the most prolific 19th century women composers. Emilie Luise Friderica Mayer was born May 14, 1812 in the German town of Friedland, the third of five children and the eldest daughter of a well-to-do pharmacist. No one else in her family was musically inclined, but after the death of her father when she was 28, a comfortable inheritance enabled her to devote the rest of her life to music and composition.

Despite the barriers to women as composers in her time, Mayer wrote and published orchestral and chamber works — including eight symphonies over a dozen concert overtures — and starting in the 1840s through to the time of her death in 1883, got them performed in Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and Vienna.

Her early works are very much in the classical Viennese tradition of Beethoven, but as the decades passed, her style became much more in the high Romantic style. For most of the 20th century her works remained largely forgotten, but a 21st century reappraisal has resulted in new interest, recordings and performances of the symphonies and overtures of Emilie Mayer.

Music Played in Today's Program

Emilie Mayer (1812-1883): Symphony No. 4; New Brandenburg Philharmonie; Stefan Malzew, conductor; Capriccio 5339

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival in the first American performance of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat.

Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also revised, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus.

Bach’s Magnificat served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers reported that “Ninth Symphomania” was breaking out in their city.

The newspapers were less impressed with Bach’s Magnificat. The Cincinnati Commercial Review opined: “The work is difficult in the extreme … most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the Magnificat the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken … possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.”

Well, whatever they thought in 1875, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach’s “inconsequential intricacies” since then.

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Magnificat

Synopsis

On this date in 1926, 19-year old composer and sometime silent film piano accompanist Dimitri Shostakovich saw his Symphony No. 1 performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic.

It must have been a heady experience for the young composer, who for the past two years had earned a living of sorts accompanying silent films at various Leningrad cinemas.

One evening, while accompanying the film Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden, he was so carried away by his own improvisations of bird song that he assumed the catcalls and noisy expressions of disapproval from the audience were directed at the film, not at him. Only afterwards was he told the audience had assumed he must have been drunk. In later years, Shostakovich would tell this story with some pride — at least they had noticed his music!

The Leningrad Philharmonic’s performance of his symphony, the first of his orchestral works to be performed in public, was a triumph and established Shostakovich as a major new talent.

May 12 was a date Shostakovich would commemorate till the end of his life — if for no other reason than he would never again have to improvise piano accompaniment to cinematic masterworks like Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden.

Music Played in Today's Program

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; Cracow Philharmonic; Gilbert Levine, conductor; Arabesque 6610

Synopsis

Although contemporaries, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss were two very different human beings. Mahler was tormented by self-doubt and existential angst; Strauss was a placid soul, self-confident to the point of complacency. Still, Mahler and Strauss admired and conducted each other’s music, and their odd friendship is reflected in their published correspondence.

On today’s date in 1911, for example, on learning Mahler had been ill, but was recovering, Strauss wrote a gracious letter to his fellow composer-conductor:

“I learn with great pleasure that you are recovering from your long illness. Perhaps it might be a happy diversion for you during the melancholy hours of convalescence to know I plan to perform your Symphony No. 3 with the Royal Orchestra in Berlin next winter. It is an excellent orchestra. If you would like to conduct yourself, it would be my pleasure to hear your lovely work again under your own direction — much as I would like to conduct it myself. I would be glad to rehearse the orchestra for you, so you would have no trouble and only the pleasure of conducting.”

Sadly, Strauss was poorly-informed about Mahler’s recovery and the gravity of his illness. Mahler died seven days after Strauss penned the letter.

Music Played in Today’s Program

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 3; London Symphony Orchestra; Jascha Horenstein, conductor; Unicorn 2006-7