Please support your favorite classical music

Donate

Support Composers Datebook

Take two minutes to support your daily two minutes of classical history
Donate

Support Performance Today

Performances you love, powered by you
Donate

Support Pipedreams today

Support your love of the King of Instruments
Donate

Support SymphonyCast today

Bring the symphony into your home
Donate
Latest

Composers Datebook®

with host John Birge

The Philharmonic does Beethoven

On today's date in 1842, an orchestra of 63 players performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 at the first concert of the Philharmonic Society of New York. This 1842 performance of Beethoven's Fifth occurred 34 years after the work's premiere in Vienna in 1808. One early and avid Philharmonic Society...Episode details...

  Play

John Birge takes over as host of 'Composers Datebook'

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.

Brubeck's Birthday

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of the American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6th, 1920, Dave Brubeck would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time—and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical...Episode details...

  Play

Janáček's "Glagolitic"

So what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you’re the Moravian-born composer Leoš Janáček, you call it “Glagolitic,” since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that. The idea came from a clerical friend who complained...Episode details...

  Play

Tchaikovsky and North endure unkind cuts

Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto was first performed on today's date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit. The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: "The...Episode details...

  Play

Jazz Age music by Gershwin and Harbison

It was wet and cold in New York on today's date in 1925, but a curious crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for a concert by the New York Symphony. Walter Damrosch was to conduct the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto by George Gershwin, who would also be the soloist. The audience reacted with...Episode details...

  Play

Bartok in Minneapolis

On today's date in 1949, Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis was the venue for the world premiere performance of Béla Bartók's last orchestral piece: his Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. The soloist was William Primrose, who had commissioned the work, with the Hungarian-born conductor Antal...Episode details...

  Play

"Four Weddings and a Funeral" by Clarke and Wagner?

Because it's often played at weddings, the "Trumpet Voluntary" is one piece of Baroque music that just about everyone has heard. Once attributed to the famous 17th century British composer Henry Purcell, this music was, in fact, composed by Purcell's slightly younger and not-so-famous...Episode details...

  Play

Massenet (and Laurie Anderson)

On today’s date in 1885, the Paris Opera gave the first performance of “Le Cid,” the 11th opera written by the French composer Jules Massenet. “Le Cid” is set in medieval Spain and tells the story of Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, a legendary hero who defended his country against the Moors. The same...Episode details...

  Play