On today’s date in 1962, Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus, and orchestra, had its premiere performance at Coventry Cathedral in England. The Cathedral had been virtually destroyed in World War II bombing, and Britten’s big choral work was commissioned to...Episode details...
It was on today’s date in 1913 that Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring” premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, provoking catcalls and fisticuffs from some in the audience. Most scholars suggest it was the ungainly, deliberately primitive choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky,...Episode details...
Unless you’re Tony Soprano, if your boss turns to you and says, “Murder can be fun,” the prudent reaction would be to: a) start looking for a new job, and b) wait for a discrete opportunity to call the police.
But in 1975, when Alfred Hitchcock made that statement to composer John Williams,...Episode details...
The American composer Jennifer Higdon is used to having her new works premiered by some of this country’s major orchestras. The Philadelphia Orchestra, for example, gave the premiere performance of her “Concerto for Orchestra” in 2002.
The following year, another Higdon work, a piece for wind...Episode details...
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...
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...
