Composers Datebook®

Glass in Rome

Composers Datebook - March 26, 2025
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Synopsis

For the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a major international arts festival was planned, and, as its centerpiece, a gigantic day-long music-theater work designed and coordinated by avant-garde American director Robert Wilson.  

Wilson titled the work the CIVIL warS: A Tree Is Best Measured When It Is Down, with a story line loosely inspired by Matthew Brady’s famous photographs from America’s Civil War, but also incorporating myths, images, and historical icons from around the world.

The idea was that the various sections of the work would be contributed by a team of composers, each section connected by what Wilson called “knee plays” – short “joints” if you will, linking the parts to the whole. The “knee play” music was contributed by the American pop musician David Byrne, a member of the Talking Heads.

The fifth and final act of Civil Wars was written by minimalist composer Philip Glass. It was dubbed The Rome Section, since it was commissioned and premiered as a separate work by the Rome Opera on today’s date in 1984.

In the end, Wilson’s ambitious day-long epic wasn’t staged in Los Angeles as planned. The reason given at the time was funding problems.

Music Played in Today's Program

Philip Glass (b. 1937): Rome Section, from The Civil Wars; Giuseppe Sabbatini, tenor; American Composers Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Nonesuch 79487

On This Day

Births

  • 1925 - French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, in Montbrison;

Deaths

  • 1566 - Spanish composer and organist Antonio de Cabezón, 56, in Madrid

  • 1827 - German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, 56, in Vienna

  • 1918 - Russian composer Cesar Cui, 83, in Petrograd (St. Petersburg)

  • 1977 - British composer, pianist and actress Madeleine Dring, 53, in Streatham, London

Premieres

  • 1723 - J.S. Bach: St. John Passion, at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig

  • 1735 - Handel: Organ Concerto No. 5 in London as an intermission feature during a revival performance of Handel’s oratorio Deborah at the Covent Garden Theater (Gregorian date: April 6)

  • 1827 - Rossini: opera Moïse et Pharaon (Moses and Pharaoh) at the Paris Opéra. This is the 3rd and French-language version of Rossini’s Italian opera Mosè in Egitto (see March 3 and 7 above)

  • 1943 - William Schuman: cantata A Free Song (after Walt Whitman), in Boston. This work won the first Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943.

  • 1958 - Henry Cowell: Ongaku a symphonic suite on Japanese themes, by the Louisville Orchestra. Robert S. Whitney conducting

  • 1958 - Lutoslawski: Marche Funèbre (in memory of Béla Bartók), in Katowice, Poland

  • 1960 - Ralph Shapey: Evocation for violin, piano and percussion, in New York City

  • 1984 - Philip Glass: Act V (The Rome Section), from The CIVIL warS, at the Rome Opera, Marcello Panni conducting

  • 1986 - Ned Rorem: The End of Summer for clarinet, violin, and piano, at Patkar Hall in Bombay (India), by the Verdehr Trio

  • 1998 - Zwilich: Violin Concerto, at Carnegie Hall in New York, by the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Hugh Wolff conducting, with soloist Pamela Frank

  • 2001 - Corigliano: Mannheim Rocket, in Mannheim (Germany), by the Mannheim National Theater Orchestra

Others

  • 1828 - Franz Schubert gives a concert of his own works in Vienna, to great success.

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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.

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