Rubinstein rescues Manuel de Falla

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1916, at the Teatro Real in Madrid, “Nights in the Gardens of Spain,” a new work by the Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla, received its first performance. The first night’s audience didn’t know quite what to make of it—was it a piano concerto or a tone poem? Whatever it was, they didn’t like it much, apparently, but there was at least one musician in the audience who did: the young Polish piano virtuoso, Artur Rubinstein.

“I had the opportunity to hear the first performance,” wrote Rubinstein in his autobiography, “I fell in love with this work and offered to play it at the last symphony concert of the season. Being constantly on tour, I learned it by reading the score on trains. At the rehearsal I played it by heart. De Falla and the conductor, Arbos, were pleased, but again the public did not respond—the work was too complicated for them, and it ended in a dead pianissimo. Nevertheless, Arbos and I were applauded warmly”

But Rubinstein knew just what was required to direct some of that applause back to the composer. “I played de Falla’s ‘Fire Dance’ as an encore,” recalled Rubinstein,” which produced the usual ovation.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Ritual Fire Dance Artur Rubinstein, piano; Philadelphia Orchestra; Eugene Ormandy, cond. RCA/BMG 63070

On This Day

Births

• 1717 - Austrian composer Georg Matthias Monn, in Vienna;

• 1846 - Italian-born British composer and vocal teacher Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti, in Ortona;

• 1887 - American composer Florence Price, in Little Rock, Ark.;

• 1906 - Hungarian-born American composer and conductor Antal Dorati, in Budapest;

• 1935 - Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen, in Salmi;

Deaths

• 1933 - German composer and organist Sigfrid Karg-Elert, age 55, in Leipzig;

• 1960 - Australian composer and pianist Arthur Benjamin, age 66, in London;

Premieres

• 1903 - Frederick S. Converse: "Endymion's Narrative" for orchestra, by the Boston Symphony, Wilhelm Gericke conducting;

• 1916 - de Falla: "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" for piano and orchestra, in Madrid;

• 1920 - Stenhammar: incidental music for Shakespeare's "As You Like It," at the Lorensberg Theater in Gothenburg, Sweden;

• 1926 - Varèse: "Amériques," by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1942 - Stravinsky: "Circus Polka" at Madison Square Gardens in New York, by the Barnum & Bailey Circus, with M. Evans conducting;

• 1948 - Barber: song-cycle "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" for voice and orchestra, by the Boston Symphony with Serge Koussevitzky conducting and soprano Eleanor Steber the soloist;

• 1959 - Benjamin Lees: "Prologue, Capriccio and Epilogue" for orchestra, in Portland, Ore.;

• 1967 - Ned Rorem: "Water Music"for clarinet, violin and orchestra, by the Youth Chamber Orchestra of Oakland, with Robert Hughes conducting and Larry London (clarinet) and Thomas Halpin (violin) the soloists;

Others

• 1870 - Grieg writes a letter from Rome describing how Franz Liszt performed his Piano Concerto at sight and praised the work highly;

• 1938 - American premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 by the NBC Symphony, Artur Rodzinski conducting;

• 1939 - First lady Eleanor Roosevelt sponsors an Easter Sunday concert by Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial to protest racial discrimination after the singer is denied use of Washington's Constitution Hall (owned and administered by the Daughters of the American Revolution); Some 75,000 people attend this open-air event.