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.
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 3 days 20 hours 54 minutes
Salieri leaves, Seidl arrives
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1825, the Italian composer Antonio Salieri breathed his last in Vienna.
Gossip circulated that in his final dementia, Salieri blabbed something about poisoning Mozart. Whether he meant it figuratively or literally, or even said anything of the sort, didn’t seem to matter and the gossip became a Romantic legend...
George Perle
Synopsis
Today’s date in 1913 marks the birthday of the American composer and musicologist George Perle, who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1986.
In a 1985 interview, Perle vividly recalled his first musical experience, an encounter with Chopin’s Étude in F minor, played by an aunt...
Tchaikovsky at Carnegie Hall
Synopsis
“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Well, the usual reply is, “By practicing!”
But back in 1891, Peter Tchaikovsky would have probably answered, “by ship”–since he had, in fact, sailed from Europe to conduct several of his pieces at the hall’s gala opening concerts...
Vaughan Williams' "London Symphony"
Synopsis
At Queen’s Hall in London, on today’s date in 1920, conductor Albert Coates led the premiere of the revised version of the “London” Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
A longer version of this Symphony had premiered six years earlier, and Vaughan Williams would continue to tinker with this work, on and off, for decades...
Pleyel and Poulenc
Synopsis
Pleyel and Company was a French piano firm founded in 1807 by the composer Ignace Pleyel. The firm provided pianos for Chopin, and ran an intimate Parisian 300-seat concert hall called the Salle Pleyel–the “Pleyel room” in English, where Chopin once performed.
In the 20th century, a roomier Salle Pleyel comprising some 3,000-seats was built, and it was there on today’s date in 1929 that a new concerto for an old instrument had its premiere performance...
Purcell's "really big show"
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1692, London audiences were treated to a lavish theatrical entertainment entitled “The Fairy Queen.”
This show was loosely based on Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a play already 100 years old in 1692...
Leo Sowerby
Synopsis
Today’s date marks two anniversaries in the life of American composer, teacher, and organist Leo Sowerby, who lived from 1895 to 1968. Sowerby was born on May 1st in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on his 32nd birthday in 1927, was hired as the permanent organist and choirmaster at St. James’ Church in Chicago, where he remained for the next 35 years...
Operatic Intrigue and Debussy's "Pelleas"
Synopsis
Today we have a tale of jealousy to tell — the tale of Claude and Mary and Maurice and Georgette—related to the premiere, on today’s date in 1902, of “Pelléas et Mélisande.”
This new opera by Claude Debussy was based on a play about jealousy by the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck...
Happy Birthday, Duke Ellington!
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, D.C.
The son of a former White House butler, Elllington was born into a comfortable middle-class African American household. After piano lessons from the aptly named Miss Klinkscales, Ellington composed his first original piece, “The Soda Fountain Rag...
Diamond's Fifth . . . finally!
Synopsis
For the 1965-1966 season of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein planned a series of concerts titled “Symphonic Forms in the 20th Century,” programming works by Mahler, Sibelius and other great European masters. Bernstein also included American symphonies, including, on today’s date in 1966, the belated premiere performance of David Diamond’s Symphony No. 5...