Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Superwoman

Synopsis

Music Played in Today's Program

Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821 - 1910) Cinderella Sandrine Piau, soprano; Nicholas Kok, piano Opera Rara 212

On This Day

Births

• 1670 - Italian opera composer Giovanni Bononcini, in Modena; In 1720 he joined the Royal Academy of Music in London, where one faction favored Bononcini's works over those by Handel

• 1821 - French mezzo-soprano PaulineViardot-Garcia; She arranged some of Chopin's mazurkas as songs and performed them with the composer in concert; She also wrote an opera, "La Derniére Sorcière," that was performed in Weimar in 1869, and a chamber opera version of "Cendrillon (Cinderella)" which was performed privately in 1904

• 1872 - Czech composer Julius Fucik, in Prague; A student of Dvorák's, he composed the famous "circus" march, "Entrance of the Gladiators";

• 1894 - Dutch-born American composer Bernard Wagenaar, in Arnhem; He was the son of the Dutch composer Johan Wagenaar (1862-1941); He came to the U.S. in 1920, was a violinist with the New York Philharmonic from 1921-23, and in 1927 became a composition teacher at the Juilliard Graduate School

• 1933 - Canadian composer R. Murray Schafrer, in Sarnia, Ontario

• 1954 - American composer Tobias Picker, in New York

Deaths

• 1949 - Czech composer Vitezslav Novák, age 78, in Skutec, Slovakia

Premieres

• 1713 - Handel: "Utrecht Te Deum," in London (Julian date: July 7)

• 1791 - Cherubini: opera, "Lodoiska, in Paris

• 1920 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 5, in Moscow

• 1972 - Panufnik: Violin Concerto, in London, with Yehudi Menuhin as soloist

• 1976 - Stockhausen: multi-media work "Sirius," in Washington, D.C., at the Smithsonian Institute

• 1984 - Sallinen: String Quartet No. 5 ("Pieces of Mosaic"), at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland, by the Kronos Quartet