Bernard Herrmann gets a pink slip

Synopsis

Music Played in Today's Program

Bernard Herrmann (1911 - 1975) Torn Curtain Opening Title Music Los Angeles Philharmonic; Esa-Pekka Salonen, cond. Sony 62700

On This Day

Births

• 1867 - Spanish composer and conductor Enrique Granados, in Lérida; He died at sea in 1916, a victim of the sinking by a German submarine of the S.S. Sussex in the English Channel during World War I)

• 1877 - Hungarian composer and pianist Ernö (Ernst) von Dohnányi; He was the grandfather of the German-born conductor Christoph von Dohnányi

• 1899 - American composer Harl McDonald, near Boulder, Colorado; He worked as the business manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra for many years, and that orchestra performed a number of his pieces under both Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy

• 1912 - Russian-born composer and conductor Igor Markevitch, in Kiev (Julian date: July 14)

Deaths

• 1924 - Italian-German composer and pianist Ferruccio Busoni, age 58, in Berlin

Premieres

• 1941 - Paul Creston: "Prelude and Dance" and "A Rumor," in New York

• 1941 - Bernard Herrmann: Symphony No. 1, on a radio broadcast by the Columbia Symphony with the composer conducting

Others

• 1733 - J.S. Bach sends a letter to Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony, requesting an official title to bolster his reputation in Leipzig; Accompanying the letter, Bach sends the "Kyrie" and "Gloria" from his Mass in b minor

• 1966 - Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Torn Curtain" opens in New York — without the film score that Bernard Herrmann had composed for it (The famous director fired Herrmann during the score's first recording sessions when Hitch discovered Herrmann had composed a "symphonic" score and not the "pop" score that Hitch had specifically requested)