Music for the Queen Mum

Synopsis

When grandma turns 90, you can bet by her age she’s gotten just about everything imaginable as a birthday gift. That was the quandary facing the Prince of Wales in 1990, when his granny, Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England (the mother of Queen Elizabeth II) — or “The Queen Mum” as just about everybody called her — was about to celebrate her 90th.

As Prince Charles wrote, “The idea for a concert came to me when I was trying to think of an original birthday present for my grandmother. It suddenly struck me that here was a wonderful reason for commissioning some new music to celebrate a very special occasion.”

Since Charles liked the music Scottish composer Patrick Doyle had written for Kenneth Branagh’s film of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Doyle was asked to write a song cycle. Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard about the planned birthday concert, and for his part commissioned British composer David Matthews. Swiss conductor and new music impresario Paul Sacher commissioned a third new work by British composer Patrick Gowers.

All three pieces were premiered in the ballroom of Buckingham Palace on today’s date in 1990, two days before the Queen Mum’s 90th birthday.

Music Played in Today's Program

Patrick Doyle (b. 1953): The Thistle and the Rose; Marie McLaughlin, soprano

Patrick Gowers (1936-2014): Suite for Violin; Jose Luis Garcia, violin

David Matthews (b. 1943): Romanza; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard, conductor

All three pieces on EMI 54164

On This Day

Births

• 1891 - English composer Sir Arthur Bliss, in London

• 1905 - German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann, in Munich

• 1936 - British composer Anthony Payne, in London

Deaths

• 1827 - English-born early American composer James Hewitt, 57, in Boston

• 1921 - Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, 48, in Naples

• 1945 - Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni, 81, in Rome

• 1945 - Austrian composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, 85, in Berlin

• 1978 - Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez, 79, in Mexico City

Premieres

• 1774 - Gluck: opera, Orphee (second version) in Paris at the Academie Royale. This is the French version of his Italian opera Orfeo ed Euridice, which had premiered in Vienna in 1762.

• 1964 - Persichetti: Piano Concerto, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire;

• 1990 - David Matthews: Romanza for cello and small orchestra (Mstislav Rostropovich, soloist); Patrick Gowers: Suite for Solo Violin and Chamber Orchestra (José-Luis Garcia, soloist) and Patrick Doyle The Thistle and the Rose (soprano Maria McLaughlin soloist), at the ballroom of Buckingham Palace in London, by the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Raymond Leppard. All three works were specially written for a concert celebrating the 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth (aka the Queen Mother).

• 1993 - John Harbison: Three City Blocks for symphonic band, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, by the U.S. Air Force Band, Lt. Col. Alan Bonner conducting

Others

• 1923 - First festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Salzburg, Austria, offering chamber music by Schönberg, Berg and Bartók. Even though the Berg String Quartet, Op. 3 had premiered it Vienna on April 24, 1911, it was the 1923 Salzburg performance by the Havemann Quartet that established Berg's worldwide reputation in musical circles.