In 1923, the Chicago North Shore Festival sponsored a competition for new orchestral works. Of the 47 scores submitted, five finalists were selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included two leading American composers of that day: George W. Chadwick and Henry Hadley. Two of the five...Episode details...
John Birge is the new host of 'Composers Datebook,' the award-winning program about this day in classical music history. A well-known name at Classical Minnesota Public Radio, he will take over from retiring and longtime host John Zech on May 1.
When the United States entered World War I, American animosity against all things German resulted in a ban on German symphonic music and operas. During the Second World War however, musically-speaking, things were VERY different. With America at war with Germany and Italy, music by Wagner and...Episode details...
In 1935, a 26-year-old American named Elliott Carter returned to the States after composition studies in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Carter found work as the music director of Ballet Caravan, an ambitious and enterprising touring ensemble whose mission was to present specially-commissioned new...Episode details...
An old music dictionary’s definition of “nocturne” reads as follows: “A night piece, a musical composition that suggests a nocturnal atmosphere, for example Haydn’s ‘Notturno’ or Mozart’s ‘Serenata Notturna,’ but more specifically a short piece of romantic character. First to use this title for...Episode details...
Today’s date marks the anniversary Richard Wagner’s birth in 1813. During Wagner’s lifetime, his most famous—and perhaps most perceptive—critic was a Prague-born Viennese writer on music named Eduard Hanslick.
Hanslick knew Wagner personally, and described him as follows: “A stranger would have...Episode details...
In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas penned a Latin hymn in praise of the holy sacrament of the last supper in which bread and wine are mystically changed into the body and blood of Christ. Aquinas’s text begins, “Pange lingua, gloriosi” or “Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s Glory.” Aquinas’s...Episode details...
It was the fashion in the late 19th century to decorate concert halls with the names of famous composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Of course, over time some composers once very popular fell out of favor, and many old concert hall walls included names like Cherubini and Meyerbeer,...Episode details...
Australian composer Jodie Blackshaw is passionate about music for wind band and is fond of quoting her famous compatriot composer Percy Grainger on the subject:
“Why this cold-shouldering of the wind band?” asked Grainger. “Is the wind band – with its varied assortments of reeds (so much...Episode details...
