Thompson's Third

Synopsis

In May of 1949, a Festival of Contemporary Music was underway at Columbia University in New York, and during that Festival (on today’s date, in fact) a new symphony received its first performance, by the CBS Symphony conducted by Thor Johnson. The work was a success, and was soon taken up by the Cleveland Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, and other major American composers. It was the Third Symphony of the American composer Randall Thompson, and one of his major orchestral works.

Thompson was born in 1899, and died in 1984. He juggled a busy career as a composer, with major posts at a variety of major American universities on both coasts, and managed, despite his teaching duties, to produce a sizeable body of chamber, orchestral, and vocal works.

These days, Randall Thompson is perhaps best known as a choral composer. His 1940 choral setting of the “Alleluia” has become a familiar choral repertory classic. Thompson’s orchestral works, on the other hand, are not heard all that often anymore, which seems a shame.

But then, as Thompson himself saw it, he was always writing for the American audiences of his own time. As he put it: “A composer’s first responsibility is and always will be to write music that will reach and move the hearts of his listeners in his own day... Literal and empty imitation of European models must be rejected in favor of our own genuine musical heritage in its every manifestation, every inflection, every living example.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Randall Thompson (1899 – 1984) Symphony No. 3 New Zealand Symphony; Andrew Schenck, cond. Koch 7074

On This Day

Births

• 1567 - Baptismal date of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi, in Cremona;

• 1808 - Irish composer Michael William Balfe, in Dublin;

• 1908 - Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson, in Akarp (near Lund);

• 1941 - American composer and pianist Richard Wilson, in Cleveland;

Premieres

• 1913 - Debussy: ballet "Jeux" (Games), at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées by the Ballet Russe, Pierre Monteux conducting;

• 1920 - Stravinsky: ballet "Pulcinella," by Ballet Russe; at the Paris Opéra, with Ernest Ansermet conducting;

• 1939 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in New York City;

• 1949 - Hindemith: Concerto for Winds, Harp and Orchestra, in New York;

• 1949 - Randall Thompson: Symphony No. 3, Columbia University, in New York, Thor Johnson conducting;

• 1958 - Cage: Piano Concerto, in New York City;

• 1960 - Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 7, in Leningrad, by the Beethoven Quartet;

• 1972 - Rochberg: String Quartet No. 3, at Tully Hall in New York City, by the Concord Quartet;

• 1992 - Stephen Paulus: "Air on Seurat (The Grand Canal)", for cello and piano, at the National Cello Competition at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Ariz.;

• 1993 - Steve Reich: opera "The Cave," in Vienna at the Wiener Festspielhaus;

Others

• 1750 - First documented report of an audience standing during the "Hallelujah" chorus of Handel's "Messiah"; On May 1 and 15 in 1750, "Messiah" had been performed as a benefit for the Foundling Hospital charity (Gregorian dates: May 12 and 26, respectively).