Composers Datebook

Synopsis

OK – say you were paid to listen to and promote hundreds of new classical recordings every month and travel the world to broker new deals for a major record company.

The question is, “What would you do in your spare time?”

Well, if you’re a composer, the answer is easy: write your OWN music, of course.

Sean Hickey’s “day job” is being the Senior Vice-President for Sales and Business Development at Naxos of America, but who also finds time to create his own chamber and orchestral works.

On today’s date in 2007, for example, his Clarinet Concerto received its premiere performance at Symphony Space in New York City, with David Gould as soloist with the Metro Chamber Orchestra. It’s gone on to be his most-performed orchestra work, and, in keeping with Hickey’s globe-trotting, has been recorded in the Russian Federation by another virtuoso clarinetist, Alexander Fiterstein with the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony.

The work also incorporates fragments of folk tunes from Scotland as part of the creative mix.

Why Scottish themes? “They have a timeless quality of most great folk music, “says Hickey. “In the concerto’s cadenza, a fiddle tune leads headlong into a rapturous close.”

Sean Hickey — Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (Alexander Fiterstein, cl; St. Petersburg Academic Symphony; Vladimir Lande, cond.)
Delos 3448

• 1899 - American composer and teacher Randall Thompson, in New York;

• 1933 - American composer and pianist Easley Blackwood, in Indianapolis;

• 1845 - Lortzing: opera "Undine," in Magdeburg at the Stadttheater;

• 1889 - Puccini: opera "Edgar," in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala;

• 1917 - Debussy: Sonata No. 2 for flute,viola, and harp, at a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante in Paris, by the trio of Manouvirier (flute), Jarecki (viola), and Jamet (harp);

• 1918 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 ("Classical"), in Petrograd, by the former Court Orchestra with the composer conducting;

• 1922 - Frederick Converse: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony, Pierre Monteux conducting;

• 1924 - Youmans: musical "No, No Nanette," in Detroit; After stops in Chicago and London, the musical opened on Broadway on Sept. 16, 1925;

• 1937 - Copland: a play-opera for high school "The Second Hurricane," at the Grand Street Playhouse in New York City, with soloists from the Professional Children's School, members of the Henry Street Settlement adult chorus, and the Seward High School student chorus, with Lehman Engle conducting and Orson Welles directing the staged production; One professional adult actor, Joseph Cotton, also participated (He was paid $10);

• 1939 - Leonard Bernstein's first appearance as a conductor, leading his own incidental score to "The Birds" at Harvard;

• 1942 - Bernstein: Clarinet Sonata, in Boston, with clarinetist David Glazer and the composer at the piano;

• 1948 - Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 6, at Royal Albert Hall in London, by the BBC Symphony, Sir Adrian Boult conducting;

• 1973 - Bliss: "Variations" for orchestra, in London, with Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1985 - Morton Feldman: "For Philip Guston," for chamber ensemble, in New York;

• 1988 - Bernstein: "Missa brevis," in Atlanta by the Atlanta Symphony Chorus conducted by Robert Shaw;

• 1749 - Against Handel's wishes, in advance of its official premiere scheduled for April 27, a public rehearsal of Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks" at Vauxhall Gardens takes place; Reports suggest 12,000 attended, causing traffic jams on London Bridge (Gregorian date: May 2);

• 1829 - Mendelssohn, age 20, arrives in London for his first visit.

• 1863 - American premiere of J.S. Bach's Concerto for Two Claviers and Orchestra No.2 in C Major, at Dodworth's Hall in New York during a Mason-Thomas chamber music "Soiree,"with Henry C. Timm and William Mason performing on two pianos.

• On Theodore Thomas
• Concert-going then and now