Nielsen's Symphony No. 3

Synopsis

Today, some “off-the-cuff” remarks about the role of shirt cuffs in music history.

Starched, button-on, detachable cuffs for men’s shirts were very popular from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, and could serve as a sort of white linen Post-It note if a melody suddenly popped into the head of a composer. Like Dvořák, say, out for a walk along the Turkey River in Spillville, Iowa — he could scribble the tune down on his shirt cuff, assuming he carried a pencil, that is, since writing it in ink before the era of ballpoint pens would not be very practical and certainly not be very popular with whoever did the composer’s laundry!

Years after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 had its premiere — on today’s date in 1912 — the Danish composer still recalled the moment when a theme in its third movement came to him.

“I was standing on the back of a tram. And [the theme] came with such urgency that I had to quickly jot it down, partly on a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, and partly on one of my shirt cuffs,” Nielsen said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931): Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva); New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor; Dacapo 220623

On This Day

Births

• 1876 - American composer John Alden Carpenter, in Park Ridge, Illinois

Premieres

• 1688 - M.-A. Charpentier: opera David et Jonathas, in Paris

• 1728 - Handel: opera Siroe, re di Persia (Julian date: Feb. 17)

• 1862 - Gounod: opera La Reine de Saba (The Queen of Sheba), in Paris

• 1888 - Tchaikovsky: Pezzo Capriccioso for cello and orchestra, in Paris

• 1898 - Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 2 (Gregorian date: Mar. 12)

• 1904 - d’Indy: Symphony No. 2 in Paris

• 1912 - Nielsen: Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva) & Violin Concerto (with soloist Emil Telmányi), in Copenhagen, with the composer conducting

• 1920 - Ravel: orchestral suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, at a Pasdeloup Concert in Paris

• 1929 - Pizzetti: Concerto dell’estate (Summer Concerto) by the New York Philharmonic, Arturo Toscanini conducting

• 1936 - Roy Harris: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony & Prelude and Fugue for strings by the Philadelphia Orchestra

• 1940 - Cowell: Old American Country Set, by the Indianapolis Symphony, Fabien Sevitzky conducting

• 1976 - Ralph Shapey: oratorio Praise in Chicago

• 1991 - John Harbison: Symphony No. 3, by the Baltimore Symphony, David Zinman conducting

• 1994 - George Tsontakis: Winter Lightning (No. 4 of Four Symphonic Quartets after poems by T.S. Eliot), by the Seattle Symphony, Gerard Schwarz conducting

Others

• 1739 - London music publisher John Walsh the younger issues Handel’s Trio Sonatas, (Gregorian date: Mar. 11)

• 1874 - American premiere of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, at New York’s Academy of Music, by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra. Thomas also introduced this concerto to Cincinnati (May 19, 1882) and Chicago (Feb. 5, 1892).

• 1882 - The Royal College of Music is founded in London.