Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Oscar Wilde often gets credit for the line, “But enough about me — what do you think about me?” Roughly a century ago, this portrait of the self-absorbed ego not only got laughs on the London stage, it also hit home with German concertgoers after a series of frankly autobiographical tone poems and operas by Richard Strauss had their premieres.

Take today’s date in 1899, for example. Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), received its premiere in Frankfurt, with the composer himself conducting. Strauss quoted themes from his own works in the section of the new score marked, “The hero’s works of peace,” leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that the hero in question was Strauss himself. Depicted in carping and crabbed musical terms were “the hero’s critics,” meant to be taken as Strauss’ real-life music critics. Understandably, they were not amused, and attacked Strauss for his inflated ego and music.

Strauss, as usual, was totally unflappable and offered his own somewhat self-deprecating description of the origins of his heroic piece as follows:

“Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is so little beloved of our conductors these days that to fulfill this need I am composing a largish tone-poem A Hero’s Life, admittedly without a funeral march, yet in E-flat, and with lots of horns, which are the yardstick of heroism.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life); Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 83

Synopsis

Recordings can be an effective calling card for composers — but the expense of recording an orchestral work in the U.S. is rather daunting, so composers often work with record labels that use orchestras abroad.

American composer Rain Worthington made a recording of her orchestral work Tracing a Dream with the Russian Philharmonic on today’s date in 2010, and, in quintessential 21st-century fashion, planned to “attend” the Moscow recording session via Skype.

“But just as I was about to log in, the recording assistant emailed the Russian authorities had revoked the permission to Skype. At the last minute an appeal by my American recording producer, Bob Lord, who was present in the studio, somehow convinced them to allow the connection. So I spent the morning ‘virtually’ in Moscow, listening to and participating in the three-hour recording session!” she recalled.

“Tracing a Dream taps into the impressionistic logic of dreams,” she said. “Within this realm there is a fluidity of connections governed by emotional contexts, rather than rational order.“

Six years after its recording in Moscow, Tracing a Dream received its public premiere by the Missouri State University Orchestra conducted by Christopher Kelts and was awarded an Ernst Bacon Award for the Performance of American Music.

Music Played in Today's Program

Rain Worthington (b. 1949): Tracing a Dream; Russian Philharmonic Orchestra; Ovidiu Marinescu, conductor; Navona 6025

Synopsis

English is a quirky language, take for example the way English labels groups of birds — it can be quite idiosyncratic and even poetic: “A conspiracy of ravens,” “A trembling of finches.”

For composers, birdsong has always exerted great fascination and has been a source of inspiration, but on today’s date in 2006, bird nomenclature was the inspiration for a new string quartet that received its premiere in Tucson at a concert sponsored by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music.

The new work was by American composer Jennifer Higdon, who explains: “The first time someone told me that a collection of larks is called an ‘exaltation’, I immediately thought, ‘What a sound an exaltation of larks must make!’ This prompted my imagination to run wild — in a composerly-fashion — thinking of thousands of birds flying and singing wildly, with extraordinary energy and intensity. How to capture the beauty of the idea of exalting and singing? A string quartet seemed perfect!“

Higdon’s new quartet, An Exaltation of Larks was given its 2006 premiere by the Tokyo String Quartet, but it was perhaps inevitable that its first recording was made by — who else? — the Lark Quartet.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): An Exaltation of Larks; Lark Quartet; Bridge 9379

Synopsis

Today, some “off-the-cuff” remarks about the role of shirt cuffs in music history.

Starched, button-on, detachable cuffs for men’s shirts were very popular from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries, and could serve as a sort of white linen Post-It note if a melody suddenly popped into the head of a composer. Like Dvořák, say, out for a walk along the Turkey River in Spillville, Iowa — he could scribble the tune down on his shirt cuff, assuming he carried a pencil, that is, since writing it in ink before the era of ballpoint pens would not be very practical and certainly not be very popular with whoever did the composer’s laundry!

Years after Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3 had its premiere — on today’s date in 1912 — the Danish composer still recalled the moment when a theme in its third movement came to him.

“I was standing on the back of a tram. And [the theme] came with such urgency that I had to quickly jot it down, partly on a scrap of paper I had in my pocket, and partly on one of my shirt cuffs,” Nielsen said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Carl Nielsen (1865-1931): Symphony No. 3 (Sinfonia Espansiva); New York Philharmonic; Alan Gilbert, conductor; Dacapo 220623

Synopsis

On this date in 1814, Ludwig van Beethoven conducted the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 8. As the scherzo movement of his new symphony, Beethoven recycled a tune he originally used as a musical salute to Johann Nepomuk Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome. For a time, Maelzel was Beethoven’s friend and occasional collaborator on concerts and various mechanical projects.

Beethoven used Maelzel’s metronomes to add precise, if sometimes debatable, tempo markings to some of his earlier works. Some conductors choose to ignore these metronome markings, since they came after the fact of composition and at a time when Beethoven was increasingly deaf. In fact, in addition to metronomes, the versatile Maelzel also supplied the Beethoven with ear trumpets — the 19th-century version of hearing aids.

Perhaps Beethoven was using one of those ear trumpets when someone asked him why his Symphony No. 7 was more popular in Vienna than his Symphony No. 8. “Because the Eighth is so much better,” he growled in reply.

Closer to our own time, American composer Leroy Anderson, who lived from 1908 to 1975, immortalized the tick-tock of a mechanical timekeeper in his piece, The Syncopated Clock. Anderson was a master of the musical miniature, creating dozens of witty pieces with titles like Plink, Plank, Plunk, Bugler's Holiday, and Fiddle Faddle.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 8; Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, conductor; DG 429 036

Leroy Anderson (1908-1975): The Syncopated Clock; St. Louis Symphony; Leonard Slatkin, conductor; BMG/RCA 68048