Glass in Rome

Synopsis

For the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, an international arts festival was planned, and, as its centerpiece, a gigantic day-long music-theater work designed and coordinated by the avant-garde American director Robert Wilson.

Wilson titled the projected work “Civil Wars.” The story line was loosely inspired by Matthew Brady’s famous photographs of America’s own Civil War, but also incorporated myths, images, and historical icons from around the world.

The idea was that the various sections of the work would be contributed by a team of composers, each connected by what Wilson called “knee plays”—short “joints” if you will, linking the parts to the whole. The “knee play” music was contributed by the American pop musician David Byrne, a member of the “Talking Heads.”

The Fifth and final act of “Civil Wars” was written by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. It was dubbed “The Rome Section,” since it was commissioned and performed as a separate work by the Rome Opera on today’s date in 1984. Glass acknowledged that he wanted to address the nearly 400-year old tradition of Italian opera, and so included an impassioned tenor aria… a modern version of the sword-waving, act-ending cabalettas in the operas of Verdi. In the end, Wilson’s day-long epic never was staged in Los Angeles as planned. The reason given at the time was “funding problems.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Philip Glass (b. 1937) Rome Section, fr The Civil Wars Giuseppe Sabbatini, tenor; American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, cond. Nonesuch 79487

On This Day

Births

• 1925 - French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, in Montbrison;

Deaths

• 1566 - Spanish composer and organist Antonio de Cabezón, age c. 56, in Madrid;

• 1827 - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, age 56, in Vienna;

• 1918 - Russian composer Cesar Cui, age 83, in Petrograd (St. Petersburg);

• 1977 - British composer, pianist and actress Madeleine Dring, age 53, in Streatham, London;

Premieres

• 1723 - J.S. Bach: "St. John Passion," at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig;

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concerto Op. 4, no. 5 in London as an intermission feature during a revival performance of Handel's oratorio "Deborah" at the Covent Garden Theater (Gregorian date: April 6);

• 1827 - Rossini: opera "Moïse et Pharaon" (Moses and Pharaoh) at the Paris Opéra; This is the 3rd and French-language version of Rossini's Italian opera "Mosè in Egitto" (see March 3 and 7 above);

• 1943 - William Schuman: cantata "A Free Song" (after Walt Whitman), in Boston; This work won the first Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943;

• 1958 - Henry Cowell: "Ongaku" a symphonic suite on Japanese themes, by the Louisville Orchestra. Robert S. Whitney conducting;

• 1958 - Lutoslawski: "Marche funèbre" (in memory of Béla Bartók), in Katowice, Poland;

• 1960 - Ralph Shapey: "Evocation" for violin, piano and percussion, in New York City;

• 1984 - Philip Glass: Act V ("The Rome Section"), from "The CIVIL warS," at the Rome Opera, Marcello Panni conducting;

• 1986 - Ned Rorem: "The End of Summer" for clarinet, violin, and piano, at Patkar Hall in Bombay (India), by the Verdehr Trio;

• 1998 - Zwilich: Violin Concerto, at Carnegie Hall in New York, by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Hugh Wolff conducting, with soloist Pamela Frank;

• 2001 - Corigliano: "Mannheim Rocket," in Mannheim (Germany), by the Mannheim National Theater Orchestra;

Others

• 1828 - Franz Schubert gives a concert of his own works in Vienna, to great success.