Synopsis
Today is Bastille Day, and on today’s date in 1900, the Opera-Comique in Paris premiered a patriotic opera, La Marseillaise, which melodramatically depicted how, on a spring night during the French Revolution, Rouget de l’Isle supposedly wrote the words and music for the song which later became the French National Anthem.
The opera has been long forgotten, but its composer, the French-born Lucien-Leon-Guillaume Lambert, Jr. — alongside his father, the American-born composer Charles-Lucien Lambert, Sr. — is getting some renewed attention. Both are included in a landmark new reference work: The International Dictionary of Black Composers, published by the Center for Black Music Research at Columbia College in Chicago.
The elder Lambert was born in New Orleans around 1828, and was a contemporary and friendly rival of famous piano virtuoso and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. He settled in Brazil, and enjoyed an international career in both Brazil and France, performing and publishing his piano dances and salon pieces, and often appearing in concert with his son.
Lucien Lambert, Jr. was born in France in 1858, and studied with Jules Massenet, among others. He won the prestigious Concours Rossini competition, and enjoyed a productive career in France and Portugal, composing ballets, concertos, and several operas — including the one that premiered in Paris on today’s date in 1900. He died in Portugal in 1945.
Music Played in Today's Program
Roger de Lisle (1760-1836): La Marseillaise; Detroit Symphony; Paul Paray, conductor; Mercury 434 332
Lucien Lambert, Jr. (1858-1945): Brocéliande Overture; Hot Springs Music Festival; Richard Rosenberg, conductor; Naxos 8.559 037
On This Day
Births
1874 - Russian-born American double-bass player, conductor and new music patron, Serge Koussevitzky, in Vishny-Volochok (Gregorian date: July 26)
1901 - English composer Gerald Finzi, in London
1930 - American composer Eric Stokes, in Haddon Heights, New Jersey
Deaths
1674 - English composer and chorister, Pelham Humfrey, 27, in Windsor. An entry in Samuel Pepy’s famous diary describes him in 1667 as being “full of form, confidence and vanity,” and disparaging “everything and everybody's skill but his own.”
Premieres
1942 - William Schuman: Newsreel, at a New York Philharmonic concert at Lewisohn Stadium, conducted by Arthur Smallens
1948 - Kurt Weill: folk opera Down in the Valley at Indiana University in Bloomington
1949 - Britten: Spring Symphony at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam
1999 - Kernis: Concierto de Dance Hits, in Minneapolis, by the Minnesota Orchestra conducted by David Miller, with guitarist David Tanenbaum
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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.