Bennett and Sousa at bat

Synopsis

In the summer of 1941, the winds of war hadn’t yet blown to Pearl Harbor, the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, and all was pretty much right with the world. The Dodgers were doing well — so well that they would eventually win the pennant, only to lose the World Series to the hated Yankees that October. But in August of 1941, that ignominious defeat was still a few months off, and Brooklyn fans were understandably optimistic.

One of them was the American composer Robert Russell Bennett, whose Symphony in D premiered early in August 1941. The composer let it be known that the D stood for Dodgers. Bennett’s Symphony in D for the Dodgers was performed but never published. We’re not sure if the Dodgers’ eventual defeat had anything to do with that — but let the record state the Dodgers eventually did beat the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.

Another composer and avid baseball fan was John Philip Sousa. Sousa’s march The National Game was composed in 1925 at the request of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, major league baseball’s first high commissioner. In his march, Sousa includes some interesting percussive effects involving, what else, a baseball bat!

Music Played in Today's Program

John Philip Sousa (1854-1932): The National Game; Royal Artillery Band; Keith Brion, conductor; Naxos 8.559092

On This Day

Births

• 1884 - Russian-born American composer Louis Gruenberg, near Brest-Litovsk (Julian date: July 22)

• 1896 - Russian inventor Lev Sergeivitch Termen (anglicized to Leon Theremin) in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: August 15)

Deaths

• 1784 - Italian composer and teacher Giovanni Battista Martini, 78, in Bologna. His students included Gluck, Mozart, Grétry, and Jommelli.

Premieres

• 1829 - Rossini: opera, Guillaume Tell (William Tell), at the Paris Opéra

• 1941 - Robert Russell Bennett: Symphony in D (For the Dodgers), in New York

• 1961 - John Cage: Atlas Eclipticalis, at the International Week of Today’s Music, in Montréal

• 1967 - Lalo Schifrin: cantata, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (adapted from the composer’s film score) by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, with Lawrence Foster conducting

Others

• 1668 - German composer Dietrich Buxtehude marries the daughter of Franz Tunder, retiring organist at St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, as a condition to succeed Tunder in his position at St. Mary’s

• 1778 - Milan’s famous Teatro alla Scala (La Scala) opens with a performance of L’Europa Riconosciuta by Italian opera composer Antonio Salieri, a work written specially for the occasion; The theater took its name from the site previously occupied by the church of Santa Maria della Scala (named after Bernabo Visconti’s wife, Beatrice della Scala). This same opera, conducted by Riccardo Muti, was performed on Dec. 7, 2004 at the Gala reopening of La Scala after three years of major renovation.

• 1779 - Mozart finishes his Posthorn Serenade in Salzburg

• 1795 - The Paris Conservatory of Music is founded by the National Revolutionary Convention