Composers Datebook

Synopsis

Even during the bombing of London by the German Air Force, the London Blitz of World War Two, the BBC Proms Concerts continued.

True, in 1941 a German incendiary bomb did destroy the long-time home of the Proms, Queen’s Hall on Langham Place, but, not to be deterred, the Proms simply moved to the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington.

Wartime Proms programs included this printed notice: “In the event of an Air Raid Warning the audience will be informed immediately, so that those who wish to take shelter either in the building or in public shelters outside, may do so, The concert will then continue.”

Talk about pluck!

In 1944, British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams completed a new oboe concerto to be premiered at a Proms concert, but a German V-1 rocket that landed dangerously near the Albert Hall led to an early end to that Proms season, since the V-1 rockets, unlike the German bombers, didn’t allow enough warning time to clear the hall.

So, on today’s date in 1944, the new Vaughan Williams concerto was premiered not in London, but in Liverpool, with soloist Leon Goossens and Malcolm Sargent conducting the Liverpool Philharmonic.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): Oboe Concerto; David Theodore, oboe; London Symphony; Bryden Thomson, conductor; Chandos 8594

Synopsis

On today’s date in 2000, a new cello concerto received its premiere performance at the Barbican Center in London. Billed as the Crouching Tiger Concerto, this score was by Chinese composer Tan Dun, and was derived from his film score for Ang Lee’s martial arts film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

That score featured a prominent cello part, tailor-made for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, as well as a variety of traditional Chinese instruments and a percussion battery that included a North African frame drum. The haunting score matched the film so effectively that it was nominated for — and won — an Academy Award.

It was director Ang Lee who suggested that Dun rework his film score into a cello concerto, and even offered to put together a special film to accompany it. In effect, saying, “Turnabout is fair play — you composed music to fit my film, now I’ll compose a film to fit your concerto!”

Lee pulled together shots from the original film and mixed in real and imaginary scenes from New York’s Chinatown and 19th century Beijing for the new film designed to accompany performances of the new concerto.

Music Played in Today's Program

Tan Dun (b. 1957): Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film score; Yo Yo Ma, cello; Shanghai Symphony; Tan Dun, conductor; Sony 89347

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1951, the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still was playing in theaters across America. The film’s opening sequence depicted a UFO hovering over Washington, D.C. Back then, flying saucer sightings were increasingly common, perhaps a result of mass hysteria spawned by cold war tensions and the existential threat posed by the atomic bomb. Or maybe we were being visited by other planets?

In any case, the movie made a big impression at the time, and countless kids — and probably a few adults as well — memorized the magic words “Gort: Klaatu barada nikto” which, in the film, prevented Washington DC’s destruction by a death-ray robot.

Fast forward nearly 50 years to 1999, when Washington, D.C.’s National Symphony premiered a new concerto for percussion and orchestra, specially composed for virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie by American composer Michael Daugherty.

Inspired by the outer-space look of her percussion gear, Daugherty titled his piece UFO and asked that the soloist arrive unexpectedly and dressed as a space alien! In performance, she moved through the audience and around the stage while performing sleight-of-hand improvisations on a variety of flying saucer-like percussive instruments.

Music Played in Today's Program

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): The Day the Earth Stood Still film score; National Philharmonic; Bernard Herrmann, conductor; London 443 899

Michael Daugherty (b. 1954): UFO; Evelyn Glennie, percussion; North Texas Wind Symphony; Eugene Migliaro Corporon, conductor; Klavier 11121

Synopsis

In September 2001, American composer Elliott Carter was just a few months shy of his 93rd birthday, but still busy composing new works both large and small.

On today’s date that year, his Cello Concerto received its premiere in Chicago with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony.

Carter’s music is technically challenging for performers, and its complexity can make it equally challenging for audiences, especially at first hearing. Despite all that, his comments on his music were usually quite straightforward:

“In this score I have tried to find meaningful, personal ways of revealing the cello’s vast array of wonderful possibilities,” he wrote. “My Concerto is introduced by the soloist alone, playing a frequently interrupted cantilena that presents ideas later to be expanded into movements.”

A month after its premiere, Ma, Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony brought the new work to Carnegie Hall, and the New York Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini wrote:

“For all its complexities … the cello part has a rhapsodic, improvisatory quality … At its conclusion, when Mr. Carter, who is 92, climbed the steps to the stage with a cane to steady him, he received a prolonged standing ovation.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): Cello Concerto; Alisa Weilerstein; Staatskapelle Berlin; Daniel Barenboim conductor; Decca 478 2735

Synopsis

Today’s date in 1899 marks the birthday of famous African-American composer, choir director and teacher, William L. Dawson, in Anniston, Alabama. After musical studies in Kansas City and Chicago, from 1931 to 1956 Dawson taught at the Tuskegee Institute, where he developed the Institute’s Choir into an internationally-renowned ensemble.

His arrangements of African-American spirituals, which he preferred to call folksongs, are justly famous, but in 1934 he produced his masterwork, a Negro Folk Symphony, modeled on Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but exhibiting his own distinctive mastery and development of his themes. His goal, he said, was for audiences to know that it was “unmistakably not the work of a white man.”

“The themes are taken from what are popularly known as Negro Spirituals. In this composition, the composer has employed themes … over which he has brooded since childhood, having learned them at his mother’s knee,” he wrote.

Dawson’s symphony was successfully premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, who took the new work to Carnegie Hall, where its 35-year-old composer was repeatedly called to the stage. The symphony was revised in 1952 with added African rhythms inspired by the composer’s trip to West Africa.

Music Played in Today's Program

William L. Dawson (1899-1990): Negro Folk Symphony; Symphony of the Air; Leopold Stokowski, conductor; DG 477 6502