Cindy McTee's Symphony No. 1

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2002, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Leonard Slatkin conducted the National Symphony in the premiere of a new symphony by American composer Cindy McTee.

She subtitled her Symphony No. 1, Ballet for Orchestra, saying: “Music is said to have come from dance — [and] the impulse to compose often begins as a rhythmical stirring and leads to a physical response — tensing muscles, gesturing with hands and arms, or quite literally, dancing. … There is also much pleasure to be gained from observing the gestures of a conductor, or from seeing the coordinated bowing of the string sections within an orchestra. My Ballet for Orchestra emerged out of a similar kinesthetic/emotional awareness and a renewed interest in dance music.”

McTee’s symphony makes passing allusions to earlier works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Barber and even Penderecki, tossing in some jazz and folk fiddling allusions for good measure. But Allan Kozinn, reviewing the new symphony for the New York Times, wrote: “Ms. McTee’s sense of organization kept the work from becoming a pastiche: As diverse as its ideas were, they seemed to unfold naturally within an orchestral fabric that used the ensemble’s full coloristic range.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Cindy McTee (b. 1953): Symphony No. 1 (Ballet for Orchestra); Detroit Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Naxos 8.559765

On This Day

Births

• 1811 - German composer, conductor and pianist Ferdinand Hiller, in Frankfurt am Main

• 1882 - Hungarian operetta composer Imre [Emmerich] Kálman, in Siófok

• 1925 - Italian composer Luciano Berio, in Oneglia, Imperia

• 1929 - American composer George Crumb, in Charleston, West Virginia

• 1931 - Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, in Chistopol, Tatar (USSR)

Deaths

• 1799 - Austrian violinist and composer Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, 59, at Castle Rothlottia, near Neuhaus (Bohemia)

• 1948 - Austrian composer Franz Lehár, 78, in Bad Ischl

• 1949 - Cuban composer and violinist Joaquin Nin y Castellanos, 70, in Havana

• 1971 - American composer Carl Ruggles, 95, in Bennington, Vermont

Premieres

• 1737 - Rameau: opera Castor et Pollux, in Paris at the Palais Royal Opéra

• 1910 - Victor Herbert: operetta, Naught Marietta, in Syracuse, New York

• 1930 - Roussel: Symphony No. 3, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1931 - Robert Russell Bennett: Abraham Lincoln Symphony, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting

• 1936 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 16, in Moscow

• 1940 - John Alden Carpenter: Symphony No. 1 (revised version), by Chicago Symphony, Frederick Stock conducting

• 1946 - Bernstein: ballet Facsimile, at the Broadway Theater in New York City by the Ballet Theater, choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with composer conducting

• 1946 - Cowell: Symphony No. 4 (Short Symphony), by the Boston Symphony, Richard Burgin conducting

• 1970 - Penderecki: Kosmogonia, at the United Nations in New York City

• 1992 - Libby Larsen: Marimba Concerto (After Hampton), by the Long Beach Symphony, with soloist William Moersch and JoAnn Falleta conducting

• 1994 - Harrison Birtwistle: opera The Second Mrs. Kong, at Glyndeborune

• 1997 - Geoffrey Burgon: Piano Concerto, in Singapore, with soloist Joanna MacGregor and the Singapore Symphony

• 1997 - Corigliano: D.C. Fanfare, in Washington, D.C., by the National Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting

• 2001 - Steve Reich: orchestral version of Different Trains, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, David Robertson, conducting

Others

• 1818 - Felix Mendelssohn, 9, plays his first public concert, in Berlin

• 1919 - First performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Walter Rothwell, conductor