Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Few of us today really know–or care–very much about the War of Austrian Succession, a conflict that troubled Europe in the 18th century. For music lovers, it’s enough to know that to celebrate the end of that war, George Frideric Handel was commissioned to compose music for a fireworks concert in London’s Green Park, an event that took place on today’s date in the year 1749...

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On today’s date in 1965, the first complete performance of the Fourth Symphony of American composer Charles Ives took place in New York...

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On today’s date in 1926, Giacomo Puccini’s last opera, “Turandot,” had its belated premiere at the La Scala Opera House in Milan, with Arturo Toscanini conducting. The originally scheduled 1925 premiere had to be postponed, as Puccini had died in November of 1924, leaving “Turandot” unfinished.

Another Italian composer, Franco Alfano, was brought in to complete the opera based on Puccini’s sketches...

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Haydn’s oratorio “The Seasons” had its premiere performance on this date in Vienna in 1801. Like its predecessor, “The Creation,” Haydn’s new oratorio was a great success, and, as before, Haydn received help with the text and a lot of advice from the versatile Gottfried Bernhard Baron van Swieten, an enthusiastic admirer of Handel oratorios and the music of J. S. Bach...

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Deadlines are a fact of life for many of us—and composer are no exception.

In 1875, Peter Tchaikovsky agreed to write 12, short solo pieces, one a month, for a St. Petersburg music magazine, beginning with their January 1876 issue...

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On this date in 1948, the ballet “Fall River Legend” was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House by the Ballet Theatre of New York. The choreography was by Agnes de Mille, and the music by Morton Gould.

The previous year, de Mille and Gould had met at the Russian Tea Room to discuss their ballet, a retelling of the true story of Lizzie Borden, acquitted for the gruesome ax murders of her father and step-mother...

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...

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1862, an 18-year-old Russian named Nicolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov graduated as midshipman from the Russian Naval Academy and prepared for a two-year’s training cruise around the world. Nicolai’s uncle was an admiral and a close friend of the Czar, and in his autobiography Rimsky-Korsakov admits he, too, at first thought it might be a good idea—he loved reading travel books, after all.

But then Rimsky-Korsakov was seduced by music...

A concerto, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is “a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” And for most Classical Music fans, “concerto” means one of big Romantic ones by Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, works in which there is a kind of dramatic struggle between soloist and orchestra. But on today’s date in 2003, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and its concertmaster Stephen Copes premiered a Violin Concerto that didn’t quite fit that mold...

It was on today’s date in 1944 that the ballet “Fancy Free”–with music Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins–was first staged by the Ballet Theater at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. It was a big hit. Bernstein himself conducted, and alongside Robbins took some 20 curtain calls...