Synopsis
On this day in the year 1886, critic Gustav Dompke wrote these lines in the German Times of Vienna, after attending a performance of one of Anton Bruckner’s symphonies: “We recoil in horror before this rotting odor which rushes into our nostrils from the disharmonies of this putrefactive counterpoint…Bruckner composes like a drunkard!”
Today, with Bruckner’s symphonies performed and recorded so often, it’s doubtful many listeners “recoil in horror” from his rich Romantic harmonies, but he’s always been a little controversial. Bruckner’s European contemporaries and his early American audiences found his approach to symphonic composition puzzling, bizarre or — more often than not — simply boring.
The vogue for Bruckner symphonies in America had to wait until the latter part of the 20th century, a full century after many of them received their premiere performances in Europe.
In 1941, for example, when Bruno Walter conducted Bruckner’s giant Symphony No. 8 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic, music critic Olin Downes lamented that Walter hadn’t chosen a “more interesting” program and noted that the Bruckner symphony “sent a number from the hall before it had finished.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896): Symphony No. 8; Concergebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, conductor; London 466 653
On This Day
Births
1930 - American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, in New York City
1868 - Scottish composer and conductor Hamisch MacCunn, in Greenock
1943 - American composer Joseph Schwantner, in Chicago
1948 - British composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, in London
Deaths
1687 - Italian-born French composer Jean Baptiste Lully, 54, in Paris, following an inadvertent self-inflicted injury to his foot (by a staff with which he would beat time for his musicians) which developed gangrene
Premieres
1963 - William Kraft: Concerto Grosso, in San Diego
1973 - Ginastera: Piano Concerto No. 2, in Indianapolis, with Hilde Somer as soloist
1984 - John Harbison: Symphony No. 1, in Boston, with the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa conducting
1985 - John Harbison: Twilight Music for horn, violin and piano, at Alice Tully Hall, by members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (David Jolley, horn; James Buswell, violin; Richard Goode, piano)
1997 - Zwilich: Peanuts Gallery (after the Peanuts comic strip characters by Charles Schultz) for piano and chamber orchestra, at Carnegie Hall in New York by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with soloist Albert Kim
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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.