MacDowell goes modern

Synopsis

These days, when modern music is on the program, a sizeable chunk of the concert hall audience might start nervously looking for the nearest exit — but that wasn’t always the case.

On today’s date in 1882, 21-year old American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell took the stage in Zurich, Switzerland, to perform his Modern Suite for piano at the 19th annual conference of the General Society of German Musicians, a showcase for new music whose programs were arranged by none other than Franz Liszt.

Liszt had met MacDowell earlier that year, and when MacDowell sent him the music for his Modern Suite for solo piano, Liszt asked the young composer to play it himself at the Society’s conference in Zurich.

The success of his Modern Suite No. 1 lead to the creation of a second, and both were published a year later by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf & Hærtel. These two suites were the first works of MacDowell to appear in print, and launched his career as one of the major American composers of the late 19th century.

Music Played in Today's Program

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908): Modern Suite No. 1; James Barbagallo, piano; Naxos 8.559011

On This Day

Births

• 1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in Campinas

Deaths

• 1937 - American composer George Gershwin, 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumor

Premieres

• 1882 - MacDowell: Modern Suite No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist

• 1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, George White’s Scandals of 1921, at the Liberty Theater in New York City

• 1996 - James MacMillan: The World’s Ransoming (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting

• 2003 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Naxos Quartet No. 2, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham (UK), as part of the Cheltenham International Festival by the Maggini Quartet

Others

• 1798 - In the nation’s capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band (The original 32 drummers and fifers assisted in recruiting and entertained residents)

• 1885 - First concert of the Boston Promenade Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston Pops) at the old Music Hall in Boston. Adolf Neuendorff conducts.

• 1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium

• 1940 - Leonard Bernstein’s first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading a performance of Wagner’s Act I Prelude to Die Meistersinger with the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert

  1998 - The President’s Own U.S. Marine Band, America’s oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary