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.
Edward Collins escapes to Wisconsin
In the 19th century, anybody who had the means would flee the stifling heat of the cities and head for someplace green and shady and cool: a country house, a spa perhaps, or maybe just a modest cabin by a lake. In the 19th century, it was Brahms who set the fashion for composers to spend their summer months in the countryside working on their music. His Violin Concerto and Second Symphony were the products of leisurely weeks spent in the lake district of Austria’s Carinthian Alps. For the American composer Edward Collins, who lived from 1889-1951, the city to be escaped was Chicago, and his country refuge was Cedar Lake, Wisconsin. In the summer of 1913, Collins composed a Concert Piece for Piano and Orchestra. Like much of Collins’ music, it was premiered by the Chicago Symphony under conductor Frederick Stock, who encouraged young American talent, especially from a local boy like Collins, a native of Joliet, Illinois. These days the music of Edward Collins has all but disappeared from American concert halls, but conductor Marin Alsop and the Concordia Orchestra recorded a sampling of his major orchestral works for a compact disc series funded by the late composer’s family.