Shostakovich gets on first

Synopsis

On this date in 1926, 19-year old composer and sometime silent film piano accompanist Dimitri Shostakovich saw his Symphony No. 1 performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic.

It must have been a heady experience for the young composer, who for the past two years had earned a living of sorts accompanying silent films at various Leningrad cinemas.

One evening, while accompanying the film Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden, he was so carried away by his own improvisations of bird song that he assumed the catcalls and noisy expressions of disapproval from the audience were directed at the film, not at him. Only afterwards was he told the audience had assumed he must have been drunk. In later years, Shostakovich would tell this story with some pride — at least they had noticed his music!

The Leningrad Philharmonic’s performance of his symphony, the first of his orchestral works to be performed in public, was a triumph and established Shostakovich as a major new talent.

May 12 was a date Shostakovich would commemorate till the end of his life — if for no other reason than he would never again have to improvise piano accompaniment to cinematic masterworks like Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden.

Music Played in Today's Program

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; Cracow Philharmonic; Gilbert Levine, conductor; Arabesque 6610

On This Day

Births

• 1739 - Bohemian composer Johann Baptist Wanha (Vanhall) in Nechanicz

• 1754 - German composer and publisher (of Mozart and Beethoven) Franz Anton Hoffmeister, in Rottenburg

• 1755 - Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Viotti, in Fontanetto da Po

• 1842 - French composer Jules Massenet, in Montaud, near St.-Etienne, Loire

• 1845 - French composer Gabriel Fauré, in Pamiers (Ariège)

• 1903 - English composer Lennox Berkeley, in Boar’s Hill, near Oxford

• 1941 - American composer, harpsichordist and organist Anthony Newman, in Los Angeles

Deaths

• 1871 - French opera composer Daniel-François Auber, 89, in Paris

• 1884 - Bohemian composer Bedrich Smetana, 60, in Prague

• 1931 - Belgian composer, violinist and conductor Eugene Ysaÿe, 72, in Brussels

Premieres

• 1736 - Handel: opera Atalanta in London at the Covent Garden Theater. Handel dedicated the opera to the recently-married Frederick, Prince of Wales (Gregorian date: May 23).

• 1832 - Donizetti: L’Elisir d’Amore (Elixir of Love), in Milan

• 1894 - R. Strauss: opera Guntram, in Weimar, with Strauss conducting

• 1917 - Bartók: ballet The Wooden Prince, in Budapest

• 1926 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1, by Leningrad Philharmonic, Nikolai Malko conducting

• 1937 - Walter Damrosch: The Man Without a Country, in New York at the Metropolitan Opera

• 1938 - Honegger: opera Joan of Arc at the Stake (concert performance) in Basel, Switzerland, at the Grosser Musiksaal. The first staged production occurred in Zürich on June 13, 1942.

• 1938 - Korngold: premiere showing of Warner Brothers’ film The Adventures of Robin Hood

• 1943 - Glière: Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra, in Moscow

• 1944 - Ginastera: Overture to the Creole Faust, in Santiago, Chile

• 1980 - John Harbison: Concerto for Piano, at Alice Tully Hall in New York, with soloist Robert Miller and the American Composers Orchestra, Gunther Schuller conducting

• 1983 - Earle Brown: Sounder Rounds for orchestra, in Saarbrücken, Germany

• 2002 - Steve Reich & Beryl Korot: multi-media presentation Three Tales (Hindenburg, Bikini, and Dolly) at the Vienna Festival in Austria, by members of the Ensemble Moderne and Synergy Vocals, directed by Bradley Lubman