Composers Datebook

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1791 Mozart’s sixth child, christened Franz Xaver, was born in Vienna. Mozart nicknamed the new arrival “Wowi” and everyone said the baby was the spitting image of papa, even down to the distinctive Mozart ears. The baby’s mother, Constanze, claimed her husband predicted the child would become a musician when he noticed that it cried in tune with the music he was playing on the piano...

Synopsis

In July of 1936, this notice concerning an upcoming Hollywood Bowl concert appeared in The Los Angeles Times: “William Grant Still will conduct two of his own works.” The nonchalance of the paper’s music and dance critic overlooked the fact that the occasion marked the first time that an African-American conductor would lead a major American orchestra...

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1938, a new opera by the 74-year-old German composer Richard Strauss had its premiere at the Munich National Theater. It was entitled “Friedenstag” or “Peace Day” – a rather ironic title, considering a Second World War was imminent.

The opera’s story takes place during the Thirty Years War in 17th century Germany...

Synopsis

Today is National Hot Dog Day, but we’re taking this opportunity to celebrate the non-grill variety, namely the Weiner dog or dachshund, a breed beloved of some famous composers and performers.

Leonard Bernstein was passionate about the many dachshund he owned, all named Henry, and once on a flight to Paris, booked a seat for a furry passenger named “Henry Bernstein...

Synopsis

The Latin word “juvenilia” is used for works produced in an artist’s youth. Sometimes, as in the case of Mozart or Mendelssohn, these early works are still worth hearing. Other composer’s juvenilia, such as the early, bombastic concert overtures of Richard Wagner, are seldom granted more than one hearing – if that...

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1838, the crew of the American ship Otis, docked at a harbor in Venezuela, discovered that one of their passengers had died in his cabin. He was the German inventor and one-time business associate of Beethoven, Johann Nepomuk Maelzel.

Maelzel was born in Regensburg in 1772, the son of an organ builder. Perhaps a childhood spent among the inner workings of pipe organs predisposed him to become an inventor of mechanical instruments...

Synopsis

Today’s date marks the premiere of two chamber works from the 1920s, both landmark and transitional works from two of the 20th century’s most influential composers.

On this date in 1920, at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet led the first performance of a “Grand Suite” from Igor Stravinsky’s biting anti-war stage fable entitled “The Soldier’s Tale...

Synopsis

In 1961, a new and difficult work for strings announced the arrival of a composer with a new and difficult name for non-Polish speakers to pronounce: Krzysztof Penderecki.

Having lived as a young man under Nazi occupation and then under Poland’s repressive and ultra-conservative Communist regime, it’s not surprising, perhaps, that as a young composer Penderecki developed an ultra-modern, rebelliously experimental musical style...

Synopsis

Today we celebrate the birthday of one of Dvorak’s composition pupils: one Julius Fucik, who was born in Prague on today’s date in 1872. Fucik studied with Dvorak at the Prague Conservatory, where he also took lessons in violin and bassoon – and perhaps only a bassoonist could have conceived of a work with a prominent bassoon part entitled “The Old Bear with a Sore Head...

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1935 marks the birthday of the American composer Peter Schickele, best known for his outrageous musical parodies supposedly penned by the fictional P.D.Q. Bach, the "last and least of the great Johann Sebastian Bach’s 20-odd children, and the oddest.”  Some radio listeners may also have fond memories of the inventive radio series he created entitled Schickele Mix, dedicated to the proposition “that all musics are created equal...