Copland breaks in a new pony

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1948, Maestro Efrem Kurtz led the first subscription concert of the newly reorganized Houston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1913, but after struggling through the “minor” disruptions of two World Wars and the Great Depression, the symphony’s 1948 season marked its rebirth as a major player among American orchestras. Since then, the Houston Symphony’s roster of conductors has included some of the greatest: Leopold Stokowski, Sir John Barbirolli and André Previn, to name just a few.

For its 1948 debut concert, the new Houston Symphony commissioned and premiered a new work by Aaron Copland — a concert suite adapted from his latest film score.

Copland had gone to Hollywood early in 1948 to write the music for the cinematic version of John Steinbeck’s novella, The Red Pony, and spent ten weeks writing about an hour’s worth of music for the new film, which was scheduled for release in 1949 — so that meant his 1948 concert suite from The Red Pony debuted even before the movie.

The Houston Post’s review called Copland’s suite “clean, joyous, ingenious and irresistibly spirited,” and correctly predicted “Mr. Copland’s Red Pony has grand little gaits, and will stand playing again — here and in a lot of other places.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): The Red Pony Suite; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, conductor; Delos 3221

On This Day

Births

• 1877 - English composer Roger Quilter, in Brighton

• 1934 - Welsh composer William Mathias, in Whitland, Dyfed

Deaths

• 1942 - German composer Hugo Distler, 34, commits suicide in Berlin

Premieres

• 1892 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera Mlada, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, with Eduard Nápravník conducting and basso Fyodor Stravinsky (Igor’s father) singing the role of Mstivoy (Julian date: Oct. 20)

• 1948 - Copland: The Red Pony Suite (from the film of the same name), by the Houston Symphony, Efrem Kurtz conducting

• 1964 - Virgil Thomson: The Feast of Love, for baritone and chamber ensemble, at the 13th Coolidge Festival in Washington, D.C.

Others

• 1738 - Handel completes Part II (Moses’ Song) of his oratorio Israel in Egypt (Gregorian date: November 12)

• 1830 - Chopin’s friends in Warsaw throw a festival “bon voyage” dinner for the composer-pianist on the eve of his departure for Paris. As it turned out, he would never return to his native land.