Composers Datebook
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Composers Datebook
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 accessi...
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Barber offers two for the price of one
On today’s date in 1938, two works by American composer Samuel Barber received their very high-profile premiere performances on a live, coast-to-coast...
A second wind for Reicha and Ward-Steinman?
Take one flute, one oboe, and mix well with one each of a clarinet, bassoon and French horn — and you have the recipe for the traditional wind quinte...
Middle-Eastern sounds from Rimsky-Korsakov and Reza Vali
On this day* in 1888, the orchestral suite Scheherazade, the most famous work of Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, was first performed in St....
First — and last — orchestral pieces by Brahms and Harrison?
On today’s date in 1873, a new piece by German composer Johannes Brahms received its first performance by the Vienna Philharmonic. The piece, Variatio...
Copland breaks in a new pony
On today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was...
Olga Neuwirth's 'Lost Highway'
“Which is better — the movie, or the book it’s based on?”
On today’s date in 2003, at its premiere in Graz, Austria, a new multi-media opera as...
'What's in a name?' asks Aaron Copland
It was on today’s date in 1944 that Martha Graham and her dance company first performed the ballet Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. The premiere t...
Don Giovanni in Prague (and Vienna)
On today’s date in 1787, Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni had its premiere performance in Prague, with Mozart himself conducting. Mozart had arrived in Pra...
'Haunted Blue' by Jeremy Walker
In 2016, Minneapolis-based jazz composer and pianist Jeremy Walker collaborated with Consortium Carissimi, a Twin Cities early music vocal ensemble in...
Villa-Lobos meets the harmonica
Traditionally, the harmonica is the instrument of the loner: the cowboy by the campfire, the hobo riding the rails, the bluesman pouring out his soul...
Elgar gets short-changed
On this day in 1919, Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony in the premiere performance of his new Cello Concerto, with Felix Salmond as soloist.<...
Tchaikovsky on a quiz show?
Imagine that you are playing for high stakes on a TV quiz show and here’s your question:
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 had it...
Of Crumb and the Crash
In the year 1929, October 24 fell on a Thursday, and that particular day has the dubious honor of being dubbed “Black Thursday” — for it was on that f...
Night music by Delius and Danielpour
On today’s date in 1913, composer Frederick Delius was in Leipzig for the first performances of two orchestral pieces destined to become among his mos...
Musical carpentry?
On today’s date in 1942, Bruno Walter conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere of the Symphony No. 2 of American composer John Alden Carpen...
Offenbach puts a critic to work
In the year 1858, Parisian composer Jacques Offenbach was, as usual, busy writing his next operetta and avoiding his creditors. He found it expedient...
Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto
An unusual piano concerto by American composer Lou Harrison had its premiere performance in New York on this day in 1985. Famous jazz pianist Keith Ja...
'Mass for Double Choir' by Claussen
From the first millennium of the Common Era to the present day, the Mass have been chanted and sung to music both simple and complex. Most Mass settin...
Symphonic Mahler and Moross
On this day in 1904, in Cologne, Germany, Gustav Mahler conducted the first performance of his Symphony No. 5. It was not a success. Applause was ligh...
Mendelssohn at Starbucks?
On this date in 1831, the 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducted a concert in Munich consisting entirely of his own works — a concert that included t...
Eduardo Martin
Today’s date in 1956 marks the birthday of Cuban composer Eduardo Martin, a name that might not be all that familiar to you — unless you play guitar,...
Claude Debussy out to sea?
On today’s date in 1905, Claude Debussy’s orchestral suite La Mer or The Sea was performed for the first time in Paris. Today this music is regarded a...
Lully and Moliere send in the clowns
To most music lovers, the name Jean-Baptise Lully calls to mind pompous and courtly music for Louis XIV, the French “Sun King” who was his great patro...
Rebecca Clarke gets her due
Today’s date in 1979 marked the passing, at 93, of a remarkable composer and performer named Rebecca Clarke. Born in Harrow, England, in 1886, she bec...
Columbus Day music
Today’s date marks the original Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer who for decades was described as the man who “discovered America.” In rece...
Concertos by Nielsen and Adams
On today’s date in 1928, Danish composer Carl Nielsen conducted the first public performance of his new Clarinet Concerto in Copenhagen.
“The cl...
Berio's 'Sinfonia' in New York
In James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, the thoughts of its major characters keep shifting from the sights and sounds they encounter in and around Dublin to t...
A birthday Beatle
John Lennon was born on today’s date in the year 1940, in Liverpool, England — during a German air raid on that city, as it happened. With three other...
Sharon Isbin and John Corigliano
1991 was a big year for American composer John Corigliano. The Metropolitan Opera premiered his opera The Ghosts of Versailles and the 53-year old com...
Music and politics with Rimsky-Korsakov and John Adams
On today’s date in 1909, The Golden Cockerel, the last opera of the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, had its premiere in Moscow. Rimsky-Korsa...
Brahms and Rzewski for amateurs
The first performance of the Liebeslieder — or the Love Song Waltzes — for piano four-hands by Johannes Brahms took place on today’s date in 1869. The...
Timely Argento and Takemitsu
It was on this day in 1972 that A Ring of Time by American composer Dominick Argento was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. The work...
How to win friends and influence Shostakovich
In 1939, Dale Carnegie published a self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, suggesting you could change people’s behavior to you by ch...
Ceremonial Beethoven and Schuman
If you had arrived early for the gala reopening celebration of Vienna’s Josephstadt Theater on today’s date in 1822, you might have heard the theater...
Joan Tower's 'Made in America'
These days, the cost of commissioning a major American composer to write a major orchestral work requires, well, a major amount of money.
Back i...
Flagg-waving in Colonial Boston?
On today’s date in 1768, two regiments of British redcoats marched into colonial Boston accompanied by martial music provided by their regimental wind...
The Twilight Zone
On today’s date in 1960, the second season of The Twilight Zone — the legendary TV series created by Rod Serling — began airing on CBS. For this, the...
Holst (and Colin Matthews) in outer space
One of the most popular works of 20th-century orchestral music, The Planets by Gustav Holst, had its first performance on today’s date in 1918. This w...
Bielawa's 'Chance Encounter'
It happens to all of us: you’re in some public space and overhear someone say something that strikes you as memorable, oddly poetical, or perhaps even...
In Memoriam: Schubert and Oldham
On this date in 1828, Franz Schubert attended a party at the Vienna home of one of his admirers and played some of his new piano sonata in B-flat, whi...