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.
Stravinsky and Schoenberg chamber premieres
Synopsis
Today’s date marks the premiere of two chamber works from the 1920s, both landmark and transitional works from two of the 20th century’s most influential composers.
On this date in 1920, at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet led the first performance of a “Grand Suite” from Igor Stravinsky’s biting anti-war stage fable entitled “The Soldier’s Tale.” During and immediately following the First World War, Stravinsky had developed a spiky, jagged, and occasionally jazzy style, and music from “The Soldier’s Tale” is typical of this period. But Stravinsky did a compositional about-face that same year with one of his earliest “neo-classical” scores: the ballet “Pulcinella,” based on themes borrowed from 18th century composers.
Stravinsky’s “neo-classical” period would last for another three decades until the 1950s, when he became fascinated with the 12-tone method of composition developed by the Austrian composer, Arnold Schoenberg.
And speaking of Schoenberg, on today’s date in 1924, his “Serenade” received its premiere at the Fourth Donaueschingen Festival in Germany. “Serenade” was the first work in which Schoenberg employed his strict “12-tone” method of composition, avoiding traditional 18th century rules of melody and harmony – and only its Mozartean sounding title could be considered “neo-classical.”
Music Played in Today's ProgramIgor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971): L'histoire du Soldat Suite (Harmonie Ensemble; Steven Richman, cond.) Koch 7438
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971): Pulcinella Suite (Columbia Chamber Ensemble) Sony 64136
Arnold Schoenberg (1874 – 1951): Serenade, Op. 24 (Ensemble InterContemporain) Sony 48463
On This Day Births1872 - French composer Déodat de Severac, in Saint-Félix-de-Caraman, Lauraguais
1908 - Swedish composer Gunnar de Frumerie, in Nacka (near Stockholm
1752 - German-born English composer and conductor John Christopher (Johann Christoph) Pepusch, age 85, in London; In 1710 was one of the founding members of the "Academy of Ancient Music," which revived 16th century vocal music; He orchestrated some of the numbers in John Gay's famous "The Beggar's Opera" in 1728
1920 - Stravinsky: "Grande Suite" from the staged work "The Soldier's Tale," in London at Wigmore Hall, with Ernest Ansermet conducting
1924 - Schoenberg: "Serenade" for chamber ensemble, in Donaueschingen, Germany
1942 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 23, in Moscow
1958 - Xenakis: "Achorripsis" for 21 instruments, in Brussels
1970 - Morton Feldman: "Mme. Press Died Last Week at Ninety," an orchestral work commemorating his Russian piano teacher, in St. Paul de Venice, France