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 52 minutes
Ned Rorem for eleven
While many great composers have also been great conductors, this can be the exception rather than the rule. On today’s date in 1959, the American composer Ned Rorem tried his hand at conducting the...
Smetana and the National Theatre in Prague
On today’s date in 1868, the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana helped lay the foundation stone for Prague’s future National Theatre. As the stone was driven into the soil with a ceremonial mallet, Sm...
Jerod Tate's "Children's Songs"
The American composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation and its Composer-in-Residence. He was born in Norman, Oklahoma, and his chamber and orchestra works, all infu...
Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever!" March
On today’s date in 1897, John Philip Sousa was in Philadelphia and leading his band in the premiere performance of “The Stars and Stripes Forever!” Sousa wrote his most famous march on Christmas Da...
New York "novelties" by Liszt et. al.
On today’s date in 1862, the front page of The New York Times offered some encouraging news to the Northern side in the American Civil War: Union troops had captured Norfolk, Virginia, and there we...
Darryl Brenzel's "Rewrite" of "The Rite of Spring"
The Paris premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”—arguably the single most-influential piece of concert music composed in the 20th century—occurred in May of 1913. At is premiere, fist-f...
Maazel's "Ring without Words"
In 1987, Telarc Records asked the late conductor Lorin Maazel if he would make a purely orchestral distillation of the four operas that make up Richard Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelung.” Telarc w...
Maxwell Davies at a wedding (with sunrise)
In 1970, British composer Peter Maxwell Davies moved to the remote and rugged Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. At first, he said, the natives thought he was just some weirdo from ...
Tavener's "wake up" call?
On today’s date in 1998, a work by the British composer John Tavener received its European premiere at the Beauvais Cello Festival in France. It’s scored for solo cello and just the cello section o...
Beethoven's Second on first?
Hold on tight—we’re about to cover 150 years of musical—and presidential—history in just 2 minutes! On today’s date in 1821, back when James Monroe was president, Beethoven’s Second Symphony was p...