Brahms in New York

Synopsis

On today's date in 1862, while President Lincoln was fretting over General McClellan’s unwillingness to confront Secessionist rebels, New York concert-goers could find some relief from Civil War headlines by attending a New York Philharmonic concert at Irving Hall.

Conductor Carl Bergman had programmed some brand-new music by a Hamburg composer named Brahms, whose Serenade No. 2 received its American premiere at their February 1 concert — a concert that took place almost two years to the day after the serenade’s world premiere in Hamburg in 1860.

Give the New York Philharmonic some credit for daring programming. After all, it would be another year before the same Serenade would be performed in Vienna. Moreover, in 1863, during the Vienna Philharmonic’s final rehearsal of this “difficult” new music by a composer nobody there had ever heard of, open mutiny broke out.

The first clarinetist stood up and declared that the music was too darn hard and the orchestra simply refused to play it. Conductor Otto Dessoff, who had programmed the Brahms, turned white with anger, laid down his baton, and resigned on the spot, joined by the Vienna Philharmonic's concertmaster and principal flutist.

Alarmed at the threatened disintegration of their orchestra, the Viennese rebels capitulated; and the performance of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 took place as scheduled and was, to the mutineers’ chagrined astonishment, a tremendous success.

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Serenade No. 2; Scottish Chamber Orchestra; Sir Charles Mackerras, conductor; Telarc 80522

On This Day

Births

• 1690 - Italian composer Francesco Maria Veracini, in Florence

• 1701 - Swedish composer Johan Joachim Agrell, in Löth

• 1859 - Irish-born American composer and cellist Victor Herbert, in Dublin

• 1869 - Russian composer and violinist Julius Conus (Yuly Konyus), in Moscow (Julian date: Jan. 20)

• 1907 - Hungarian-born Swiss composer Sándor Veress, in Kolozsvár

• 1928 - German-born American composer Ursula Mamlok, in Berlin

Deaths

• 1824 - Austrian composer and pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis, 64, in Vienna

• 1875 - British composer Sir William Sterndale Bennett, 58, in London

• 1981 - German composer Ernst Pepping, 79, in Berlin

• 1981 - Norwegian composer Nils Geirr Tveitt, 72, in Oslo

Premieres

• 1893 - Puccini: opera, Manon Lescaut, in Turin at the Teatro Regio

• 1896 - Puccini: opera La Bohème, in Turin at the Teatro Regio, with Arturo Toscanini conducting

• 1916 - Nielsen: Symphony No. 4 (The Inextinguishable) with the orchestra of the Copenhagen Music Society, the composer conducting

• 1918 - Lehar: operetta Wo die Lerche Singt (Where the Lark Sings) in Budapest

• 1930 - Schoenberg: opera Von Heute af Morgen (From One Day to the Next), at the Frankfurt Opera

• 1947 - Hindemith: Sinfonia Serena by the Dallas Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting

• 1982 - Tobias Picker: Violin Concerto, by the American Composers Orchestra, Paul Dunkel conducting, with Rolf Schulte the soloist

• 1984 - John Harbison: chamber orchestra version of Mirabai Songs (to poems of Mirabai, translated by Robert Bly), at Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with mezzo-soprano Hance Felty and the ensemble Collage, Gunther Schuller conducting. The original voice and piano version of this work premiered in Boston on Nov. 15, 1983.

• 1996 - George Walker: Lilacs for voice and orchestra, by soprano Faye Robinson and the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa conducting. This work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music.

• 2002 - Michael Torke: An American Abroad for orchestra, in Edinburgh, Scotland, by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Marin Alsop conducting

Others

• 1881 - After a private performance of the late Jacques Offenbach’s final work, The Tales of Hoffmann, at the Opéra Comique in Paris, runs longer than anticipated, extensive cuts and alterations are made to the score before its first public staging.

• 1862 - American premiere of Brahms’ Serenade No. 2, at Irving Hall in New York, by the New York Philharmonic, Carl Bergmann conducting. The world premiere performance of this work had occurred in Hamburg, Germany, on Feb. 10, 1860, with the composer conducting.

• 1864 - First documented American performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, at Milwaukee's Music Hall, by the Musical Society under Frederick Abel, with three unnamed soloists