Composers Datebook

• Loeffler and Anderson in Boston

  SynopsisToday we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Boston (where else?), noting two musical premieres that occurred in that Celtic city.The first premiere was in March 1922, when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony in the premiere of three of the Five Irish Fantasies by German-born American composer Charles Martin Loeffler. These were settings for solo voice and orchestra of poetry by William Butler Yeats, and, for their Boston premiere, the vocalist was none other than great Irish tenor John McCormack. The second premiere dates from 1947, when the Eire Society of Boston commissioned another American composer, Leroy Anderson, to write an Irish Suite for its annual Irish night at the Boston Pops. Anderson used six popular Irish tunes, ranging from the sentimental to the exuberant, for his suite, skillfully arranging them into an immediate hit and lasting success.   Arthur Fiedler conducted the premiere and the work soon became a staple item for St. Patrick’s Day concerts in Boston and concert halls all across the United States.Music Played in Today's ProgramCharles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935): Five Irish Fantasies; Neil Rosenshein, tenor; Indianapolis Symphony; John Nelson, conductor; New World 332Leroy Anderson (1908-1975): Irish Suite; Decca studio orchestra; Leroy Anderson, conductor; MCA 9815

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• Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 1968, 72-year-old Italian-born American composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco died in Beverley Hills. As a young man, he was already known as a rising composer, concert pianist, music critic and essayist. In 1939 he left Mussolini’s Italy and came to America, and like a lot of European musicians of the time, he found work writing film scores for major Hollywood studios. Castelnuovo-Tedesco became an American citizen, and eventually taught at the Los Angeles Conservatory, where his pupils included many famous names from the next generation of film composers, including Jerry Goldsmith, Henry Mancini, Andre Previn, Nelson Riddle and John Williams.In addition to film scores, Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed a signifigant body of concert music, including concertos for the likes of Heifetz and Segovia.A number of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s works are directly related to his Jewish faith, including Naomi and Ruth, a choral work from 1947. The composer’s mother was named Naomi, and he claimed the faithful Ruth in the Biblical story reminded him of his own wife, Clara. “In a certain sense,” he wrote, “it was really my symbolic autobiography, existing before I decided to write — to open my heart — in these pages.”Music Played in Today's ProgramMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968): Naomi and Ruth; St. Martin’s Academy and Chorus; Sir Neville Marriner, conductor; Naxos 8.559404

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• Rorem's 'After Reading Shakespeare'

  SynopsisFor their February 2013 cover story, the editors of BBC Music Magazine, came up with a list of the 50 most influential people in the history of music. Bach was on it, as you might expect — but so was Shakespeare.Any music lover can see the logic in that, and cite pieces like Mendelssohn’s music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Tchaikovsky’s Overture-Fantasy Romeo and Juliet, or all the great operas based on Shakespeare’s plays, ranging from Verdi’s Falstaff to a recent setting of The Tempest by Thomas Adès.And speaking of The Tempest, in New York on today’s date in 1981, Sharon Robinson premiered After Reading Shakespeare, a new solo cello suite she commissioned from American composer Ned Rorem. “Yes,” Rorem said, “I was re-reading Shakespeare the month the piece was accomplished… Yet the experience did not so much inspire the music itself as provide a cohesive program upon which the music be might formalized, and thus intellectually grasped by the listener.” Rorem even confessed that some of the titles were added after the fact, “as when parents christen their children.“  After all, as Shakespeare’s Juliet might put it, “What’s in a name?”Music Played in Today's ProgramNed Rorem (1923-2022): After Reading Shakespeare; Sharon Robinson, cello; Naxos 8.559316

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• Previn's Violin Concerto

  SynopsisOn today’s date in 2002, a new violin concerto received its premiere by the Boston Symphony and German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, with the new work’s composer, Andre Previn conducting. Previn was born in Berlin, came to the United States in 1939, and became an American citizen in 1943.His concerto reflects a homecoming of sorts in its third movement, “From a Train in Germany.”  In 1999, while riding on a German train, Previn had telephoned a birthday greeting to his manager, who suggested that the new composition he was planning for Boston might reflect that return to the country of his birth. And so its third movement ended up incorporating a German children’s song suggested by Anne-Sophie Mutter, one Previn had known as a child.Autobiographical inferences throughout the concerto are also suggested by an inscription from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, which reads: “We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/will be to arrive where we started/and know the place for the first time.” And, as if to underscore the autobiographical interplay of life and art, Mutter and Previn were married on August 1, 2002, five months after the premiere of “their” Concerto.Music Played in Today's ProgramAndré Previn (1930-2019): Violin Concerto; Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin; Boston Symphony; André Previn, conductor; DG 474500

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• Rochberg in Chicago

  SynopsisIn 1986, the city of Chicago celebrated its 150th anniversary, and an anonymous music patron was willing to back the commission of a big new orchestral work for the pride of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its superstar conductor back then, namely George Solti.The manager of the Chicago Symphony approached American composer George Rochberg about writing something, suggesting that the patron specifically wanted a concerto for brass and orchestra. Not that surprising, since the Chicago Symphony then and now has special reason to be proud of its brass section. Rochberg’s counter-proposal was that he would write a symphony, reassuring the orchestra’s manager: “When I write my new symphony, I will not neglect the brass.”Some months later, the composer met with Solti to outline his revised plans for the Chicago commission. When Solti requested extra brass and percussion, Rochberg recounted the story of the anonymous patron’s commission of a Concerto for Brass, to which Solti, smiling broadly, replied: “Oh, that was me!” — and readily agreed to a symphony instead of a concerto.Rochberg’s brassy Symphony No. 5, was premiered by Solti and the Chicago Symphony on today’s date in 1986.Music Played in Today's ProgramGeorge Rochberg (1918-2005): Symphony No. 5; Saarbrucken Radio Symphony; Christopher Lyndon-Gee, conductor; Naxos 8.559115

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