Synopsis
Dealing with the death of loved ones is never easy, but sometimes music can help — especially if music plays a role in the lives of both the departed and survivors. And some survivors find both meaning and consolation in commissioning a work of new music to honor the memory of those they have lost.
On today’s date in 2007, the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia gave the premiere of such a memorial work, Love Abide. The work was commissioned by Paul Rowley, who for years had driven his wife Miriam to weekly Choral Society of Philadelphia rehearsals, where she sang alto, always, said her husband, “beaming with excitement.”
After her sudden death in 2003, Rowley asked the society’s artistic director to choose a composer to write a tribute to his wife. Rowley had a text in mind for the lyrics and wanted an alto solo and a female composer. The commission went to British composer Roxanna Panufnik and the selected text was the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, which includes the lines: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all thinks, endures all things … faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968): Love Abide; London Oratory School Choir; London Mozart Players; Lee Ward, conductor; Signum 564
On This Day
Births
1740 - American-born Moravian composer John Antes, in Frederickstownship, Pennsylvania
Deaths
1654 - German composer Samuel Scheidt, 66, in Halle
1916 - Spanish composer Enrique Granados, 48, dies at sea returning to Europe from New York City when the S.S. Sussex is torpedoed in the English Channel by a German submarine during WWI
1921 - French composer Deódat de Sévérac, 48, in Céret
Premieres
1784 - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15, at the Trattnerhof in Vienna, with composer as soloist
1860 - Joachim: Violin Concerto (Hungarian), in Hannover, Germany
1868 - Brahms: Piano Quintet, in Paris, with pianist Luise Langhans-Japha, with an unidentified string ensemble
1881 - Verdi: opera Simon Boccanegra (second version, with libretto revised by Boito), in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala
1924 - Sibelius: Symphony No. 7, in Stockholm, with the composer conducting
1932 - Randall Thompson: Symphony No. 2, in, Rochester, New York
1941 - Shostakovich: incidental music for Shakespeare’s King Lear, in Leningrad, at the Gorky Bolshoy Dramatic Theater
1949 - Panufnik: Tragic Overture, in New York City
1984 - Philip Glass: opera Akhnaten, in Stuttgart, at the Wurttemberg State Theater, with Dennis Russell Davies, conducting
1996 - Thomas Oboe Lee: ART: arias and interludes for string quartet, in Gassoon Hall at Boston College by the Artaria Quartet
2001 - Chihara: Songs of Love and Loss, by violist Geraldine Waltherthe and the 20-voice San Francisco Chamber Singers, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, California, directed by Robert Geary
Others
1721 - J.S. Bach dedicates his six Brandenburg Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, whose orchestra apparently never performed them
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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.