Loeffler's Quartet

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1892, the Adamowski Quartet gave a concert in Boston that included two movements from a string quartet by 32-year old composer Charles Martin Loeffler.

For the past 10 years, Loeffler had been the associate concertmaster of the Boston Symphony, and just the previous year they had premiered his first orchestral piece.

Loeffler told people he was born in the Alsace region of France in 1861, which would account for his French manners and the French titles he gave some of his pieces. In fact, he was born in Berlin, but he never forgave the Prussians for the political persecution and imprisonment of his father, and left Berlin for Paris as soon as he could.

In 1881, at 20, Loeffler came to the United States, where, as he put it, he found Americans “quick to reward genuine musical merit and to reward it far more generously than Europe.” In 1887, he became an American citizen, and in short order established himself as one of our leading composers.

After his death in 1935, Loeffler’s music fell into neglect for many decades, but his elegant and well-crafted music is attracting renewed interest — and recordings — today.

Music Played in Today's Program

Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935): String Quartet; DaVinci Quartet; Naxos 8.559077

On This Day

Births

• 1772 - Italian composer and violinist Pietro Nardini, in Livorno

• 1801 - Austrian composer and violinist Josef Lanner, in Vienna

• 1932 - Bulgarian-born American composer Henri Lazarof, in Sofia

Deaths

• 1814 - British composer, music journalist and historian Charles Burney, 88, in Chelsea

Premieres

• 1735 - Handel: Organ Concertos No. 4. (Julian date: April 1);

• 1747 - Handel: oratorio Judas Maccabaeus (Julian date: April 1);

• 1826 - Weber: opera Oberon, in London at Covent Garden, conducted by the composer

• 1867 - Offenbach: operetta Le Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein (The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein), in Paris

• 1892 - Loeffler: Second and third movements from String Quartet, at Boston’s Union Hall by the Adamowski Quartet. The same ensemble had premiered the 2nd mvt of this four-movement Quartet in Philadelphia during the 1889-90 season, that performance being the first public performance of any of Loeffler's compositions.

• 1907 - Henry Hadley: tone poem Salome (after Oscar Wilde), by the Boston Symphony, Karl Muck conducting

• 1930 - Janácek: opera From the House of the Dead, in Brno at the National Theater. The score for this performance was extensively reorchestrated by two pupils of Janácek. More recent performances have used editions prepared by Rafael Kubelik or Charles Mackerras which are closer to Janácek's original score.

• 1933 - Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Violin Concerto No. 2 (The Prophets), at Carnegie Hall by the New York Philharmonic, with Arturo Toscanini conducting and Jascha Heifetz as soloist

• 1957 - Wallingford Riegger: Symphony No. 4, at the University of Illinois, Urbana

• 1978 - Ligeti: opera La Grand Macabre, in Stockholm at the Royal Opera

• 1995 - John Williams: Bassoon Concerto (The Five Sacred Trees), by Judith LeClair and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Kurt Masur

Others

• 1877 - American premiere of Verdi’s opera Don Carlos in New York City