Composers Datebook

Synopsis

In St. Petersburg on today’s date in 1893, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance of his latest symphony, his sixth. From the beginning, this symphony has been commonly known by its French subtitle, the Pathétique, a designation suggested by the composer’s brother, Modest.

Now, by Pathetique, Modest meant something like “passionate” or “emotional,” with overtones of “pathos” and “suffering,” but in plain old English, “pathétique” translates as “pathetic,” a word with a slew of negative connotations. The French sounds much better, thank you. Tchaikovsky had originally wanted to call it A Program Symphony with, apparently, no intention of cluing anyone in on what that program might be.

In any case, nine days after he conducted the premiere, Tchaikovsky was dead. Was his death the result of a fatal glass of unboiled water recklessly drunk during the height of a cholera epidemic? Or was it a deliberate suicide to avoid the scandal of a homosexual affair becoming public? Did his Symphony Pathétique encode the answer?

Speculation has raged around Tchaikovsky’s last symphony ever since, surrounding this last work with what one critic has called “voluptuous gloom.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique); Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conductor; DG 449 967

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1994, Dennis Russell Davies conducted the Chicago Symphony in the premiere performance of a 23-minute orchestral work by American composer Steven Mackey. The new piece was titled Eating Greens, after a painting of the same name that the composer purchased at an African art store in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

Eating Greens is a colorful orchestral suite of seven movements. The fourth movement is only 46 seconds long and is playfully labeled “The Title Is Almost as Long as the Piece Itself.” Other movements’ titles acknowledge the influence of the colorful and playful visual artist Henri Matisse and the quirky but brilliant jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk.

In the liner notes for the recording of Eating Greens, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, Mackey wrote, “On more than one occasion, Michael has used the word ‘wacky’ to describe my music. Composers usually blanch at such attributions — nobody wants to be captured in a single word — but I can live with ‘wacky.’ It is not a common adjective, does not end with ‘ism’ and clearly the rhyme with my last name personalizes it.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Steven Mackey (b. 1956): Eating Greens; New World Symphony; Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor; RCA/BMG 63826

Synopsis

For composers of new operas, all too often, after the heady champagne of opening night comes the strong black coffee of “the morning after” — sipped anxiously while reading the first reviews.

Imagine yourself as American composer Robert Ward, whose opera The Crucible was premiered by the New York City Opera on today’s date in 1961. Here’s what he would have read in the New York Times the following morning:

“Last night, the audience heard an opera that, in philosophy and workmanship, could have been composed at the turn of the century, or before. And, judging from the response at the end of the work, the audience loved it.”

Hmm. Not all that bad, so far.

But down a few more lines comes this zinger: “Mr. Ward is an experienced composer whose music fails to bear the impress of a really inventive mind. Melodically, his ideas had little distinction. ... [The opera’s] powerful subject cried out for intensity, for brutality and shock. ... Instead, we had musical platitudes.”

Ouch!

Oh, well, despite the nasty review, his opera did well at the box office, and, for the record, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music the following year.

Music Played in Today's Program

Robert Ward (1917-2013): The Crucible; New York City Opera; Emerson Buckley, conductor; Albany 25/26

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1970, a new chamber work by American composer John Corigliano received its premiere performance at a concert given by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the group that had commissioned it.

The new piece, Poem in October, was scored for tenor voice and eight instruments and was a setting of poetry by Dylan Thomas, the great Welsh poet who died in 1953.

“The thing that most appeals to me is the sound of his words,” he explained. “Phrases from Poem in October like ‘a springful of larks in a rolling cloud’ and ‘the blue altered sky streamed again a wonder of summer’ are in themselves musical.”

“The music itself is unabashedly lyrical. I sought to convey a pastoral feeling that would match the directness and simplicity of the text, to deal in understatement and succinctness rather than in complexity and theatrical effect,” Corigliano said.

His chamber scoring includes three “pastoral” wind instruments — flute, oboe and clarinet — plus strings, and, perhaps to give the work a slightly archaic feel, a harpsichord.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Corigliano (b. 1938): Poem in October; Robert White, tenor; Thomas Nyfenger, flute; Humbert Lucarelli, oboe; Joseph Rabbai, clarinet; American String Quartet; Maurice Peress, conductor and harpsichord; RCA 60395

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2002, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Leonard Slatkin conducted the National Symphony in the premiere of a new symphony by American composer Cindy McTee.

She subtitled her Symphony No. 1, Ballet for Orchestra, saying: “Music is said to have come from dance — [and] the impulse to compose often begins as a rhythmical stirring and leads to a physical response — tensing muscles, gesturing with hands and arms, or quite literally, dancing. … There is also much pleasure to be gained from observing the gestures of a conductor, or from seeing the coordinated bowing of the string sections within an orchestra. My Ballet for Orchestra emerged out of a similar kinesthetic/emotional awareness and a renewed interest in dance music.”

McTee’s symphony makes passing allusions to earlier works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Barber and even Penderecki, tossing in some jazz and folk fiddling allusions for good measure. But Allan Kozinn, reviewing the new symphony for the New York Times, wrote: “Ms. McTee’s sense of organization kept the work from becoming a pastiche: As diverse as its ideas were, they seemed to unfold naturally within an orchestral fabric that used the ensemble’s full coloristic range.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Cindy McTee (b. 1953): Symphony No. 1 (Ballet for Orchestra); Detroit Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Naxos 8.559765