Composers Datebook
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Composers Datebook
Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessi...
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Seeing things at Wagner's 'Parsifal'
On today’s date in 1882, the first performance of Richard Wagner’s new opera Parsifal took place at the Bayreuth Festival in Bavaria. In the audience...
Opera Glass?
On today’s date in 1976, an unusual opera premiered at the Théatre Municipale in Avignon, France. It ran for five hours with no breaks between acts. T...
Arnaud's after-the-fact Olympic tune
The composer of this familiar theme was born on today’s date in 1904 in Lyon, France. He was christened Noel Arnaud, but is better known as Leo Arnaud...
Scarlatti (and Persichetti) Sonatas
On today’s date in 1757, Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti died in Madrid. He was 71, and for the last 38 years of his life was employed at the cour...
A Verdi premiere in London
On today’s date in 1847, Giuseppe Verdi conducted the premiere performance of his newest opera, I Masnadieri or The Robbers, at Her Majesty’s Theater...
Hindemith's St. Francis ballet
In London on today’s date in 1938, the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo presented Nobilissima Visione, a work by German composer Paul Hindemith based on th...
Morton Feldman salutes his piano teacher
Today a tip of the hat to a much-beleaguered and frequently unacknowledged species: the piano teacher. Do you, for example, remember the name of your...
The 'Leningrad Symphony' on NBC
During WWII, German troops encircled Leningrad for 900 days, a siege that caused immense suffering for that city’s residents. One of them, composer Dm...
Pauline Viardot-Garcia
Today we pay tribute to Pauline Viardot-Garcia, born in Paris on today’s date in 1821. Her father was Manuel Garcia, the tenor for whom Rossini had wr...
Salzburg and Messner
On today’s date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival...
Violinist, conductor and composer Eugene Ysaye
Today we note the birthday of a remarkable composer, conductor and virtuoso violinist: Eugéne Ysaÿe, who was born in Liége, Belgium, on today’s date i...
Villa-Lobos premieres
For decades, Russian-born American composer, conductor and witty musical lexicographer Nicolas Slonimsky compiled the reference work Music Since 1900....
Ingram Marshall's 'Dark Waters'
A famous commercial for magnetic recording tape once asked the question: “Is it live — or Memorex” — suggesting it was hard to tell the difference. Th...
Mendelssohn sees double
On today’s date in 1829, German composer Felix Mendelssohn was in London, participating in a gala concert to raise funds for the victims of a flood in...
Bolcom's 'Sonata Stramba'
The Violin Sonata No. 3 by American composer William Bolcom had its premiere on today’s date in 1993 at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. The work...
MacDowell goes modern
These days, when modern music is on the program, a sizeable chunk of the concert hall audience might start nervously looking for the nearest exit — bu...
Elgar lights up?
On today’s date in 1919, British composer Edward Elgar finished a work he labeled jokingly as his Opus 1001 — a 50-second Smoking Cantata, intended, a...
Diamond and Thompson
Today we note the birth and death anniversaries of two American composers of the 20th century.
On today’s date in 1915, American composer David...
Louis Ballard
Today’s date in 1931 marks the birthday of the first notable Native American composer of concert music. His name was Louis Ballard, and he was born in...
Handel celebrates peace
Unless you’re just mad about 18th century history, it’s unlikely you know off the top of your head who the winners and losers were in the War of the S...
Louis Armstrong and American music
On today’s date in 1971, jazz great Louis Armstrong died in New York City at 69. He was born in New Orleans, and for years, all the standard reference...
Piazzolla passes
On today’s date in 1992, lovers of the tango had good reason to be sad. Argentinean composer and bandoneón virtuoso Astor Piazzolla had died in Buenos...
The 1812 Overture
Weather permitting, there’s a good chance you’ll be attending an outdoor symphonic concert tonight that will close with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, c...
Grainger and 'Country Gardens'
Country Gardens is the best-known work of Australian-born American composer, arranger, and pianist Percy Grainger. Its score bears this note: “Birthda...
Lucky Gluck?
In German, “Gluck” means “luck,” and today’s date marks the birthday of a German composer named Christoph Willibald Gluck, whose good fortune it was t...
Milhaud's 'Scaramouche' Suite
On today’s date in 1937, a two-piano suite by French composer Darius Milhaud had its premiere. It was titled Scaramouche, after a stock character in t...
Herrmann's 'Wuthering Heights'
In 1971, American film composer Bernard Herrmann confessed, “the only thing I ever did that was foolhardy was to write an opera.” The opera was based...
Rafael Kubelik
Today’s date in 1914 marks the birthday of famous Czech conductor Rafael Kubelík. He was the son of a very musical father, namely the violin virtuoso...
Antoine Forqueray
On today’s date in 1745, 73-year-old French composer Antoine Forqueray died in Mantes-la-Jolie outside Paris, where he had lived after his retirement...
George Templeton Strong, Jr.
The name George Templeton Strong crops up frequently in both the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War and Ric Burns’ history of New York City. That...
Zwilich's Piano Concerto
It was Mozart who wrote the first great piano concertos, with Beethoven, Brahms and others following suit in the 19th century. Closer to our own time,...
Telemann makes the record
In the Guiness Book of Music Facts and Feats, the record for Most Prolific Composer goes to Georg Philip Telemann, who died on today’s date in 1767 at...
Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 5
In wartime London, on today’s date in 1943, a Promenade Concert featured the first performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5. The composer...
Carol Barnett's "Praise"
In 2008, the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists was held in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and for the occasion a Minnesota Organ Book...
Mehul's interesting times and tunes
There is an ancient curse, popularly attributed to the Chinese, “May you live in interesting times!” French composer Étienne-Nicolas Mehul, who was bo...
Lalo Schifrin
Today is the birthday of versatile Argentinean-born American composer, arranger and jazz pianist, Boris Claudio “Lalo” Schifrin, who was born in Bueno...
Mendelssohn and Richard Rodgers the record
On today’s date in 1948 at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel there was a press demonstration of a new kind of phonograph record. Edward Wallerstein of...
Freddy Hollaender and 'The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T'
Today’s date marks the 1953 New York premiere of a musical movie that flopped when it debuted but has since become a cult classic — and for two good r...
Shchedrin's Oboe Concerto
Violin soloists have it easy: there are thousands of violin concertos they can choose from, starting in the Baroque era of Bach and Vivaldi, and conti...
Berio, Brahms and Boccherini
The “Three B’s” are traditionally Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, of course — but today we’re offering Boccherini, Brahms and Berio.
20th-century I...