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Composers Datebook®

with host John Birge

Beyond "The Planets" with Gustav Holst

On today’s date in 1874 the Gustav Holst was born in Cheltenham, England. He was christened “Gustavus Theodore von Holst,” and his early works were published under that name, but he removed the Germanic “von” after World War I broke out in 1914. At the Royal College of Music, Holst studied...Episode details...

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Pauline Viardot and the Last Sorcerer

“Name-dropping” can be VERY annoying, and we all know someone who can’t resist letting us know all the famous people they rub shoulders with–or DID, before social-distancing, that is. Well, name-dropping is hard to avoid when talking about the remarkable mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, who lived...Episode details...

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Vaughan Williams at Westminster

On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially...Episode details...

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Elgar's Fifth

On today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, the British composer Sir Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5,” the last in this popular series. Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when...Episode details...

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Hildegard von Bingen, 12th century "New Ager"

On today’s date in the year 1179, in the German convent of Ruppertsberg near Bingen, an 81-year-old abbess named Hildegard breathed her last. The 12th century was a time of great accomplishments in art, religion, and human thought, a kind of medieval Renaissance, and Hildegard of Bingen was one...Episode details...

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Shostakovich on Broadway?

On today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical “No, No Nanette” opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London. Tunes from “No, No Nanette” even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For...Episode details...

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Henry Brant, "Marxist?"

Today marks the birthday of Henry Brant, born in Montreal in 1913 to American parents. In 1929, Brant returned to New York and studied composition with Wallingford Riegger and George Antheil, exponents of the then-current modernist trends in music. Brant came of age during the Great Depression,...Episode details...

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Tan Dun and Beethoven – in (and out) of China

On this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms, and the American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the FIRST time an American orchestra had performed in...Episode details...

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Before you go...

Who’s who and what’s what is our specialty at Composers Datebook. Take 2 minutes to make a gift today, to help us continue to share this musical education experience.

Copland counts to 12

On today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, entitled “Inscape,” was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Copland said the work’s title “Inscape” was borrowed from the 19th century English poet Gerard Manley...Episode details...

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Milhaud and Bernstein in Venice

For decades many of the 20th century’s greatest composers routinely visited Venice’s famous canals and churches during a biennial music festival that showcased brand-new works by the likes of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten, and others. The French composer Darius Milhaud describes sharing space...Episode details...

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