Bach and Mozart in New York

Synopsis

It’s usually new music that gets terrible reviews, but scanning old newspapers, you’ll find that occasionally old music gets panned with equal venom.

On today’s date in 1865, a concert by the Theodore Thomas Orchestra at Irving Hall opened with an orchestral arrangement of a Bach Passacaglia, followed by Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola.

The New York Times reviewer was not thrilled with either selection:

“The Bach is a fair representation of the treadmill. A culprit may travel on it for a day without advancing a step. It simply goes ‘round and ‘round in the most obvious style, and is generally dull — like a superannuated church warden… The symphony for violin and viola by Mozart is a work generally avoided in Europe. The wearisome scale passages on the little fiddle repeated ad nauseam on the bigger one are simply maddening. On the whole, one would prefer death to a repetition of this production,” he wrote.

Thus spake The Times in April of 1865. We should note in its defense that Americans had other matters on their minds that week. The day the review appeared the paper’s headline read: “Union Victory! Peace! Lee Surrenders His Whole Army!”

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750) (arr. Respighi): Passacaglia in c; BBC Philharmonic; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Chandos 9835

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Sinfonia Concertante; Midori, violin; Nobuko Imai, viola; NDR Symphony; Christoph Eschenbach, conductor; Sony 89488

On This Day

Births

• 1533 - Italian composer and publisher Claudio Merculo, in Correggio

• 1692 - Italian composer and violin virtuoso Giuseppe Tartini, in Pirano

• 1881 - Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky (Gregorian date: April 20)

Deaths

• 1848 - Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti, 50, in Bergamo

• 1858 - Austrian composer and publisher Anton Diabelli, 76, in Vienna

• 1920 - American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes, 35, in New York

• 1937 - American composer Arthur Foote, 84, in Boston

Premieres

• 1708 - Handel: oratorio La Resurrezione (The Resurrection), at the Bonelli Palace in Rome, with Arcangelo Corelli leading the orchestra

• 1876 - Ponchielli: opera La Gioconda, in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala

• 1894 - Bruckner: Symphony No. 5, in Graz, with Franz Schalk conducting his own much-edited and re-orchestrated version of Bruckner’s score. The Schalk edition was subsequently published as the official version of the symphony. The composer’s original version of this symphony was first performed in 1935 and published in 1936.

• 1927 - Varèse: Arcana for orchestra, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1931 - Shostakovich: ballet The Bolt, in Leningrad, at the Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet

• 1935 - Bartók: String Quartet No.5, at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, by the Kolisch Quartet

• 1938 - Walter Piston: Symphony No. 1, by the Boston Symphony, with the composer conducting

• 1949 - Bernstein: Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety), by the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevutzky, with composer as piano soloist

• 1983 - Christopher Rouse: Rotae Passionis (Passion Wheels) for chamber ensemble, in Boston, by Boston Musica Viva, Richard Pittman conducting

• 1985 - Michael Torke: The Yellow Pages for chamber quintet, at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., by the Yale Contemporary Players

• 1989 - Libby Larsen: Songs from Letters (of Calamity Jane to her daughter), for soprano and orchestra, in New York, by soprano Mary Elizabeth Poorel

• 1999 - Bright Sheng: Three Songs for pipa and cello, at The White House in Washington, D.C., by Wu Man (pipa) and Yo-Yo Ma (cello)

Others

• 1739 - London music publisher John Walsh the younger issues Handel’s Trio Sonatas,(Julian date: Feb. 28)

• 1805 - Haydn, 73, gives his blessing to the late Wolfgang Mozart’s 14-year old son, Franz Xaver Mozart, at the teenager’s first public concert

• 1865 - American premiere of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertate for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, in New York, with violinist Theodore Thomas and violist Georg Matzka (A review of this concert in the New York Times said: “On the whole we would prefer death to a repetition of this production. The wearisome scale passages on the little fiddle repeated ad nausea on the bigger one were simply maddening.”)

• 1886 - Franz Liszt plays for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle

• 1931 - Abram Chasins: Flirtation in a Chinese Garden and Parade (orchestral versions of two of his Three Chinese Pieces for piano) become the first pieces of American music conducted by Arturo Toscanini as music director of the New York Philharmonic.