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 58 minutes
Mozart's "Coronation" Concerto
On today's date in 1789, Mozart was in Dresden, performing his new Piano Concerto at the Royal Saxon Court. Mozart was pretty good at documenting his own compositions, and we know from a catalog of...
Jeremy Walker and Seven Psalms
Over the centuries, many composers have set verses from the Bible’s Book of Psalms to music, often in response to times of turmoil and trouble. One unusual Psalm setting had its premiere performan...
Loeffler's Quartet
Today in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a String Quartet by a 32-year old composer named Charles Martin Loeffler. It was one of the young co...
Mozart and Allegri
In the 18th century, just like today, Roman tourists gravitate toward the Vatican to view the famous Sistine Chapel and its ceiling by Michelangelo. But during Holy Week in the 18th century, there ...
Giannini's Symphony No. 3
On today's date in 1959, the Duke University Band, under its conductor Paul Bryan, gave the official premiere performance of a new work they had commissioned: the Symphony No. 3 for concert band by...
Florence Price and Marion Anderson
Today in 1887, in Little Rock, Arkansas, a baby girl named Florence Beatrice Smith was born. She would grow up to be the first African-American woman to win widespread recognition as a symphonic co...
Bach and Mozart in New York
It's usually NEW music that gets terrible reviews in the press, but scanning old newspapers, you'll find that occasionally OLD music gets panned with equal venom. On today's date in 1865, a concer...
A Corigliano father and son act?
From 1951 to the time of his death in 1976, the Texas-born conductor Victor Alesandro led the San Antonio Symphony. In addition to being a fine conductor, Alessandro had a very clever system for ...
Salzedo and the Harp
Carlos Salzedo, the most influential harpist of the 20th century, was born in Arcachon, France, on today’s date in 1885. Salzedo transformed the harp into a virtuoso instrument, developing new tech...
Strauss goes batty?
Johann Strauss, Jr. dominated the dance hall scene in Vienna in the first quarter century of his musical career, but the "waltz king" was 45 years old before he tried his hand at writing an operett...