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Latest

Composers Datebook®

with host John Birge

Colorful music by Scriabin and Torke

A question: do you see colors when you hear music? No, we’re not going psychedelic on you and absolutely no controlled substances are involved in preparing today’s edition of COMPOSERS DATEBOOK. It’s just that many composers do—see colors, that is. The late Romantic Russian composer Alexander...Episode details...

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Roger Sessions' "The Kennedy Sonata"

The American composer Roger Sessions is an acquired taste for most classical music fans, and, truth be told, his works don’t show up on concert recital programs all that often. He was born in the 19th century, 1896, when Grover Cleveland was president, and died in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was...Episode details...

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Rehearsing Monteverdi and Reich

Today, a letter: written on this date in 1615 by the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi to a friend at the court of the Duke of Mantua. The letter accompanied a vocal score that Monteverdi hoped would convice the Duke to commission a much larger work. After detailed instructions regarding the...Episode details...

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Mahler's First in Budapest and New York

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 was first heard on this day in Budapest in 1889, with the 29-year-old composer conducting. Originally billed as a “symphonic poem,” a newspaper in Budapest even printed a detailed program, obviously supplied by Mahler himself. For subsequent performance in Europe,...Episode details...

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Buda and Pest feted in music by Bartok and Kodaly

The modern Hungarian city we know as Budapest is really three older settlements merged into one: Buda, on the west bank of the Danube, was the royal seat of the medieval Hungarian kings; Obuda, just to the north, was an ancient Roman provincial capital; and Pest, is a newer city situated on the...Episode details...

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'Toon-ful music by Carl Stalling

Today’s date marks the official birthday of a quintessential American form of 20th century music—for cartoons. It was on November 18, 1928, that the first-ever animated cartoon with its own synchronized soundtrack debuted at the Colony Theater in New York City. This was Walt Disney’s “Steamboat...Episode details...

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"To be Certain of the Dawn" by Stephen Paulus

On today’s date in 2005, the chancel of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis was transformed into a performance stage for vocal soloists, choirs, and the Minnesota Orchestra led by Osmo Vänksä. The occasion was the world premiere performance of a new oratorio entitled “To Be Certain of the...Episode details...

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Gluck sings the blues

On today’s date in 1777, the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was baffled by Parisian audiences and wrote these lines to a friend: “I am so much disgusted with music that at present that I would not write one single note for any amount of money… Never has a more keenly-fought battle...Episode details...

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Kern's "Showboat" is launched in D.C.

Today’s date marks the anniversary of the first performance of Jerome Kern’s “Show Boat,” produced in 1927 at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. by Florenz Ziegfeld. Show Boat’s book and lyrics were by Oscar Hammerstein II, adapted from Edna Ferber’s novel, which had been published only...Episode details...

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An important date for Copland and Bernstein

If ever there was a red-letter day in American music, November 14th must surely be it. For starters, it’s the birthday of Aaron Copland, who was born in New York City on today’s date in 1900—and then there’s all that happened on November 14th in the life of Leonard Bernstein. Here’s how...Episode details...

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