Composers Datebook

On today’s date in 1738, a once-successful French composer died destitute in an asylum of Charenton. It was a lamentable end for the 56-year-old Jean-Joseph Mouret, who had once served the French King at the Palais Royal and whose operas had once graced the stage of the Paris Opéra...

The short career of Charles Tomlinson Griffes is one of the more tragic “might-have-beens” of American music history. Griffes died at 35 years old, in 1920, just as his music was being taken up by the major American orchestras of his day. As most American composers of his time, Griffes studied in Germany, and his early works were, not surprisingly, rather Germanic in tone. But beginning around 1911, Griffes began composing works inspired by French impressionism and the art of Asia...

In the section of his autobiography on the 1960s, Aaron Copland wrote: “I have often called myself a ‘work-a-year’ man… and 1964 belonged to the band piece ‘Emblems.’ Among the invitations I received to compose new pieces was one from clarinetist Keith Wilson, who was president of the College Band Directors National Association, for a work to be played at the organization’s national convention...

When Franz Schubert died in Vienna in 1828, he left behind several manuscripts of symphonies unpublished, and in some cases unperformed during his short lifetime. It wasn’t until today’s date in 1865—37 years after Schubert’s death—that his most famous Symphony received its premiere performance in his hometown of Vienna. This Symphony in B minor came to be called the “Unfinished,” since its manuscript score contained only two completely finished movements...

Nostalgic fans of old-time radio and TV shows will have no trouble recognizing the overture to Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek’s comic opera “Donna Diana” as the signature theme for Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, an adventure series set in the far North which chronicled the exploits of a Royal Canadian Mountie and his loyal husky, Yukon King. This music, however, had its real birth on today’s date in the year 1894 at the New German Theater of Prague, when Reznicek’s opera had its first performance...

A color wheel is a circular chart showing the relationship of the colors of the spectrum. It was originally fashioned by Sir Isaac Newton back in 1666, and still serves as a useful tool for painters and graphic designers today...

On today’s date in 1918, the Metropolitan Opera in New York offered the world premiere performance of not one, not two, but three brand-new operas by Giacomo Puccini. The three one-act operas are collectively billed as “Il Trittico” or “The Triptych...

On today’s date in 1836, Chopin held a soiree in his apartment in Paris. The famous tenor Adolphe Nourit sang some Schubert songs, accompanied by Chopin’s friend, Franz Liszt. Liszt and Chopin then played a new Sonata for piano four-hands by Ignaz Moscheles. In attendance was a petite, olive-skinned Baroness turned writer known by her pen name, George Sand. Sand was notorious for her racy novels and for her highly unorthodox lifestyle...

1685 was a good year for composers: Bach, Scarlatti, and Handel were all born in 1685, as was, on today’s date, an Italian composer named Lodovico Giustini. Like Bach, Giustini came from a family of musicians, and Lodovico began his career by succeeding his father as church organist, eventually landing the prize organ post at his hometown cathedral, a position he retained for the rest of his life...

On today’s date in 1918, the celebratory “American Fantasy” of the Dublin-born American composer Victor Herbert opened the first program of the newly-formed Cleveland Orchestra. Cleveland had reason to celebrate. World War I had ended one month earlier, and, for some time, city organizers had been trying to build a hometown orchestra. In December of 1918, Father John Powers of St...