Leonardo Balada

Synopsis

Today we celebrate the birthday of Leonardo Balada, an American composer born in Barcelona on today’s date in 1933. After studying at the Barcelona Conservatory, the 20-something composer came to New York on a musical scholarship.

Balada recalls his arrival as both a cultural and climatic shock: “When I landed in New York — on a freezing day in 1956 — little did I know of the mental turmoil I would experience in the next few years. That city had become the focal point for the latest music and arts. New York shook my musically conservative upbringing to its roots.”

Like most composers of his generation, Balada had to decide whether to follow the path of the abstract serialists who dominated music at that time or find his own path.

“I felt a strong necessity to … look to the future and not be criticized as a reactionary,” recalls Balada. “How could it be otherwise for a liberal young fellow brought up in Spain, opposed to Franco’s conservatism?”

With encouragement from great Spanish guitarist Narciso Yepes, Balada began to draw on his own imagination and cultural heritage, blending contemporary techniques with elements of a more traditional language, often infused with Spanish themes.

Music Played in Today's Program

Leonardo Balada (b. 1933): Concierto Magico; Eliot Fisk, guitar; Barcelona and Catalonia National Orchestra; Jose Serebrier, conductor; Naxos 8.555039

On This Day

Births

• 1875 - Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Ciurlionis, in Varena (then the Kaunas province of the Russian Empire; Julian date: Sept. 10)

• 1933 - Spanish composer Leonardo Balada, in Barcelona

• 1961 - American composer Michael Torke, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Deaths

• 1989 - American song composer Irving Berlin, 101, in New York City

Premieres

• 1869 - Wagner: opera, Das Rheingold, in Munich at the Hoftheater, Franz Wüllner conducting. The opera was performed at the Bavarian emperor Ludwig II's request, but against the composer’s wishes.

• 1938 - Webern: String Quartet, at South Mountain, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, during the Berkshire Chamber Music Festival. This work was commissioned for $750 by the American music patron, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge.

• 1964 - Jerry Bock: musical Fiddler On the Roof opens on Broadway. It would run for 3,242 performances before closing.

• 1971 - Barber: The Lovers for solo voice and chorus (after a poem by Pablo Neruda), in Philadelphia

• 1989 - Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles (orchestrated version prepared by Bright Sheng), at the Tilles Center of Long Island University with the New York Chamber Symphony conducted by Gerard Schwarz and featuring vocalists Susan Graham and Kurt Ollmann. The first version of this work, for soloists and piano four-hands, premiered on May 9, 1988, at Equitable Center Auditorium in New York City.

• 1990 - James MacMillan: The Beserking (Piano Concerto), at Henry Wood Hall in Glasgow by pianist Peter Donohoue and the Royal Scottish Orchestra, Matthias Bamert conducting

• 1990 - Christopher Rouse: Jagannath for orchestra, by the Houston Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach conducting

• 2000 - Philip Glass: Tirol Concerto for piano and orchestra, by Dennis Russell Davies (piano and conductor) with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, at the 7th annual Klangspuren Festival in Schwaz, Tirol (Austria)

• 2000 - Zwilich: Millennium Fantasy for piano and orchestra, by the Cincinnati Symphony, Jesús Lopez-Cobos conducting with soloist Jeffrey Biegel

Others

• 1937 - During the Spanish Civil War, Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas conducts his 1935 composition Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca in Madrid while the city was under siege by Spanish fascist forces. The Spanish poet Lorca had been killed by the Falangists.