Ran's Violin Concerto

Synopsis

It was on today’s date in 2003 that a new violin concerto by composer Shulamit Ran premiered at Carnegie Hall — but it would be just as appropriate for us to run this episode of Composer’s Datebook on Mother’s Day — as Ran explained:

“Thoughts of my mother, Berta Ran, whose strength of spirit has been a profoundly significant guiding light throughout my life, have embedded themselves in various parts of this work. At the closing of the concerto, echoes of a familiar melody, one my mother sang to me in childhood with words of her own creation, appear, gently fading away.”

Ran was born in Tel Aviv in 1949 and moved to New York City at 14 on a scholarship to Mannes College of Music. From 1973 to 2015, she taught at the University of Chicago, and served as composer-in-residence with the Chicago Symphony. In 1991 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Commenting on winning the prestigious award, she admitted to being a little surprised: “I feel I’ve always been out of step,” she said. “At times … I was not considered avant-garde enough. Now, considering the current trend of accessibility, some think I’m too forbidding.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Shulamit Ran (b. 1949): Violin Concerto; Ittai Shapira, violin; BBC Concert Orchestra; Charles Hazlewood, conductor; Albany TROY-970

On This Day

Births

• 1761 - Czech composer and violinist Anton (Antonín) Wranitzky (Vranický, Wraniczky, Wranizky), in Nova Rise, Moravia. He studied with Haydn and Mozart in Vienna and was a friend of Beethoven.

• 1766 - Austrian composer and pianist Anton Eberl. Some of his works were mistakenly (or perhaps deliberately) published as Mozart’s.

• 1899 - Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chávez, in Calzada de Tacuba, near Mexico City

Deaths

• 1962 - English composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goosens, 69, in Hillingdon

• 2002 - American composer and conductor Ralph Shapey, 81, in Chicago

• 2005 - American composer David Diamond, 89

Premieres

• 1784 - Mozart: Piano & Winds Quintet, Sonata for Two Pianos, and the Piano Concerto No. 17, at the home of Mozart’s pupil, Barbara Ployer, outside Vienna. The Piano Concerto may have been premiered earlier that year on April 29, at a concert given by Mozart at Vienna’s Kärtnertor Theater in the presence of Emperor Joseph II.

• 1855 - Verdi: opera Les Vêspres Siciliennes (The Sicilian Vespers), in Paris at the Grand Opéra

• 1911 - Stravinsky: ballet Petrushka, in Paris at the Théatre du Châtelet, with Pierre Monteux conducting

• 1923 - Walton: Façade, in London, with Dame Edith Sitwell reciting her poems, the composer conducting

• 1923 - Stravinsky: Les Noces, at the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris

• 1942 - Honegger: opera Joan of Arc at the Stake (first staged production), in Zürich at the Stadttheater. This work was premiered in a concert performance in Basel on May 12, 1938.

• 1967 - David Ward-Steinman: Cello Concerto, in Toyko, by the Japan Philharmonic conducted by Milton Katims, with Edgar Lustgarten the soloist

• 1986 - John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine at Great Woods, Mansfield, Massachusetts, with Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

• 1999 - first staging in Germany of the original German version of Kurt Weill’s opera Der Weg der Verheissung (The Eternal Road), in Chemnitz, Germany, with John Mauceri conducting. The English-language premiere staging had occurred at the Manhattan Opera House in New York City on January 7, 1937, in a production staged by Max Reinhardt that ran for 153 performances.