Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Today, some “off-the-cuff” remarks about the role of shirt cuffs in music history.

Starched, button-on, detachable cuffs for men’s shirts were very popular from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, and could serve as a sort of white linen Post-It note if a melody suddenly popped into the head of a composer. Like Dvořák, say, out for a walk along the Turkey River in Spillville, Iowa — he could scribble the tune down on his shirt cuff, assuming he carried a pencil, that is, since writing it in ink before the era of ballpoint pens would not be very practical and certainly not be very popular with whoever did the composer’s laundry!

Years after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 had its premiere — on today’s date in 1912 — the Danish composer still recalled the moment when a theme in its third movement came to him.

“I was standing on the back of a tram. And [the theme] came with such urgency that I had to quickly jot it down, partly on a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, and partly on one of my shirt cuffs,” Nielsen said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931): Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva); New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor; Dacapo 220623

Synopsis

On this date in 1814, Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 8. As the scherzo movement of his new symphony, Beethoven recycled a tune he originally used as a musical salute to Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome. For a time, Maelzel was Beethoven’s friend and occasional collaborator on concerts and various mechanical projects.

Beethoven used Maelzel’s metronomes to add precise, if sometimes debatable, tempo markings to some of his earlier works. Some conductors choose to ignore these metronome markings, since they came after the fact of composition and at a time when Beethoven was increasingly deaf. In fact, in addition to metronomes, the versatile Maelzel also supplied the Beethoven with ear trumpets — the 19th-century version of hearing aids.

Perhaps Beethoven was using one of those ear trumpets when someone asked him why his Symphony No. 7 was more popular in Vienna than his Symphony No. 8. “Because the Eighth is so much better,” he growled in reply.

Closer to our own time, American composer Leroy Anderson, who lived from 1908 to 1975, immortalized the tick-tock of a mechanical timekeeper in his piece, The Syncopated Clock. Anderson was a master of the musical miniature, creating dozens of witty pieces with titles like Plink, Plank, Plunk, Bugler's Holiday, and Fiddle Faddle.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 8; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 429 036

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975): The Syncopated Clock; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; BMG/RCA 68048

Synopsis

Two interesting symphonies had their premieres on today’s date just eight years apart. Oddly enough, they were composed nearly ninety years apart.

The first was the Symphony No. 1 by Georges Bizet, written in 1855 when the composer was only 17. It was mislaid in his papers, ignored by Bizet himself as a naive youthful exercise, and not revived until 1935. It was performed for the first time on February 26 that year in Basel, Switzerland under the baton of Felix Weingartner, who found a copy of the score that had been kept in the Paris Conservatory.

The other work that premiered today was American composer Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 5. It was written in 1942, during World War II, and was reportedly inspired by reports of heroic resistance by the Soviet Union to the Nazi invasion. He dedicated this symphony to the Red Army in honor of its 25th anniversary.

The first performance — given by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony on February 26th, 1943 — was broadcast via short wave to the Soviet Union. Ironically, despite Harris’ unquestionable credentials as a loyal American and enthusiastic patriot, his pro-Soviet Symphony No. 5 was to become something of an embarrassment when our one-time Soviet allies became Public Enemy No. 1 during the long Cold War period that followed the end of World War II.

Music Played in Today's Program

Georges Bizet (1823-1892): Symphony No. 1; ORTF Orchestra; Jean Martinon, conductor; DG 437 371

Roy Harris (1899-1979): Symphony No. 5; Louisville Orchestra; Robert Whitney, conductor; Albany 012

Synopsis

In London on today’s date in 1871 an audience gathered in the newly-finished Royal Albert Hall to attend the first-ever concert to be performed there. This occurred a month before the official opening of this famous Victorian edifice as a special thank-you for the workers who constructed the building.

The orchestra that played that concert was famous in its day — though now totally forgotten. It was called The Wandering Minstrels and its players were all British aristocrats — Lords, Right Honourables, and senior military — who from 1861 to 1896 played exclusively for charity events. One strict rule of membership was that only amateur musicians were allowed. If you earned even one penny as a professional, you were out.

That happened to one member, composer Frederick Clay, who had to leave The Wandering Minstrels when music he wrote for the stage started to pull in a few pennies. Clay even collaborated with W.S. Gilbert, the famous librettist for Arthur Sullivan, who occasionally performed as a guest with The Wandering Minstrels.

And yes, it’s likely that the Gilbert & Sullivan song “A Wandering Minstrel I” from The Mikado was an in-joke reference to the aristocratic orchestra, especially since Nanki-Poo, who sings it, was (after all) a nobleman in disguise.

Music Played in Today's Program

W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) & Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900): ‘A Wand’ring Minstrel I,’ from The Mikado; D’Oyly Carte Opera Company; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Royston Nash, conductor; London/Decca 425190

Synopsis

It’s quite possible that you or someone you know is the caregiver for an ill or aging relative or friend. If so, you know the emotional rewards — and heavy emotional toll — that caretaking involves.

On today’s date in 1989, American composer John Adams led the Saint Paul Chamber orchestra and baritone Sanford Sylvan in the premiere performance of a powerful new chamber work he had composed inspired by — and in honor of — caretakers everywhere.

In 1988, his father had died after years of struggling with Alzheimer’s, and Adams was haunted by images of his mother caring for her husband as the illness progressed. Living in San Francisco, he was also moved by Bay Area friends who nursed loved ones during those helpless early years of the AIDS epidemic.

He found that these 20th century experiences resonated in certain poems by 19th century American poet Walt Whitman, who had served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, initially to care for his own wounded brother, but subsequently to tend other wounded soldiers in those traumatic years.

Adams chose one Whitman poem, “The Wound Dresser,” as text and title for his new work. “The Wound Dresser is about the power of human compassion that is acted out on a daily basis,” he said. This work has become one of the most-performed and most-admired of all the compositions of John Adams.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Adams (b. 1947): The Wound Dresser; Sanford Sylvan; baritone; Orchestra of St. Luke’s; John Adams, conductor; Nonesuch 79218