Wallingford Riegger

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1961, American composer Wallingford Riegger died in New York City, a month shy of what would have been his 76th birthday.

Riegger was born in Albany, Georgia, in 1885. Like many American musicians back then, he studied in Germany. In the years before America entered World War I, Riegger worked in both the US and Europe: for three years he was the principal cellist with the St. Paul Symphony in Minnesota; he then served as an assistant voice coach and conductor at German opera houses in Würzburg and Königsberg.

Returning home in 1918, Riegger spent ten years teaching, eventually settling in New York in 1928. There he got to know Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, and other “ultra-modern” composers. Riegger’s early music had been in the traditional mode, but he quickly established himself as one of the leading figures in the more experimental American music scene.

In the 1930s, Riegger, like Copland, worked with the pioneers of modern American dance, including Martha Graham, and composed ballet scores. From 1938 on, however, he concentrated on non-theatrical scores, including symphonies and chamber works.

Riegger’s mature works blend atonality with traditional musical forms and dance rhythms, even on occasion some jazzy American syncopation.

Music Played in Today's Program

Wallingford Riegger (1885-1961): Wind Quintet; New York Woodwind Quintet; Bridge 9068

On This Day

Births

• 1803 - German composer and conductor Franz Lachner, in Rain am Lech

Deaths

• 1961 - American composer Wallingford Riegger, 75, in New York

Premieres

• 1800 - Beethoven: Symphony No. 1, at the Hofburgtheater in Vienna, during a benefit concert for Beethoven (an Akademie) conducted by the composer. Also on the program was the first public performance of Beethoven’s Septet (A private performance had already taken place at the home of Prince Schwarzenberg). The earliest documented American performance of some or all of Beethoven’s First occurred in the Moravian community of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, on June 13, 1813.

• 1911 - Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe Suite No, 1, in Paris, with Gabriel Pierné conducting

• 1932 - Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 (original version), at a private concert in Munich, at which Siegmund von Hausegger first performed the much revised and cut version of this symphony prepared by Bruckner’s pupil, Ferdinand Löwe, then the composer's original score. Clemens Krauss conducted the first public performance of Bruckner's original version with the Vienna Philharmonic on October 23, 1932.

• 1938 - Quincy Porter: Symphony No. 1, by the New York Philharmonic, with the composer conducting

• 1948 - Hartmann: opera Simplicius Simplicissimus (concert performance), in Munich by the Bavarian Radio

• 1958 - Mayuzumi: Nirvana-Symphony, in Tokyo

• 1970 - Rochberg: Caprice Variations for solo violin, by Lewis Kaplan, broadcast live in New York on WBAI’s Free Music Store

• 2005 - Per Norgard: The Will-o’-the-Wisps Go to Town (to texts by Hans Christian Andersen and Susanne Broegge), for soloists, chorus and orchestra, in Birmingham, England, by the Birmingham Symphony.

Others

• 1825 - First documented American performance of Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, at the City Hotel in New York during an orchestral program conducted by Joseph Herrmann

• 1845 - Shortly before his 16th birthday, American composer and piano virtuoso Louis Moreau Gottschalk performs a recital in Paris at the Salle Pleyel. Chopin attends, and congratulates Gottschalk on his performance.

• 1877 - American premiere of Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), at the Academy of Music in New York City

• 1914 - Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet conducts Stravinsky’s Symphony No. 1 in Montreux and begins friendship with Stravinsky; Ansermet would become a famous interpreter and champion of this composer’s works. In April of 1919, Stravinsky would dedicate a reduced-orchestra version of his Firebird Ballet Suite to Ansermet and his newly-formed ensemble, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.