Synopsis
Yes, Juliet, a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a catchy title alone can’t help a piece of music that’s uninspired or just plain boring. An intriguing title, however can sometimes help put audiences into a more receptive frame of mind — or at least pique their curiosity.
From the very beginning of his career in the 1980s, the young American composer Michael Torke had the knack of coming up with evocative titles. His early works had titles like Ecstatic Orange and Bright Blue Music. A piece composed for the 1994 Olympic Games in Atlanta was titled Javelin, and this music, an orchestral suite that premiered in Amsterdam on today’s date in 1997, was titled Overnight Mail.
And each of the three movements of his orchestral suite had an additional title, as Torke explains:
“The titles of the suite’s three movements, Priority, Standard, and Saturday Delivery present the options for expediency when sending things, but musically, they represent different reactions to an abstract compositional problem I set up for myself … for me this was important, because I want to write music that follows all the old rules of voice leading and counterpoint, but sounds fresh.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Michael Torke (b. 1961): Overnight Mail; Orkest de Volharding; Jurjen Hempel, conductor; Argo 455 684
On This Day
Births
1673 - French flutist and composer Jacques-Martin Hottetere, in Paris
Deaths
1977 - Russian composer Alexander Tcherepnin, 78, in Paris
Premieres
1918 - Holst: The Planets, at Queen’s Hall, London
1921 - Sigmund Romberg: operetta Blossom Time, in New York City
1949 - Bliss: opera The Olympians, in London
1968 - Henze: Piano Concerto No. 2, in Bielefeld, Germany
1969 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14 (to poems of Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker, and Rilke), in Leningrad, by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rudolf Barshai conducting, with vocal soloists Galina Vishnevskaya and Yevgeny Vladimirov
1983 - Lutoslawski: Symphony No. 3, in Chicago
1997 - Michael Torke: Overnight Mail for chamber ensemble, in Carre, Amsterdam, by the Orkest de Volharding, Jurjen Hempel conducting
2000 - Tan Dun: Crouching Tiger Concerto, at the Barbican Festival in London, by the London Sinfonietta
Others
1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso No. 1 (Gregorian date: Oct. 10)
1789 - Mozart completes his Quintet for clarinet and strings in Vienna, written for clarinetist Anton Stadler, who gave the first public performance of the new work in December of that year.
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.
