Of success and sorrow: Gorecki's Third
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Composers Datebook
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Synopsis
On today’s date in 1977, Polish composer Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony No. 3 was performed for the first time in Royan, France, by the Southwest German Radio Orchestra.
Gorecki’s symphony has a subtitle — Symphony of Sorrowful Songs — and sets three texts set for solo soprano voice: a 15th century lamentation from a Polish monastery, a prayer inscribed on the wall of a WWII prison cell at the headquarters of the Polish Gestapo and a sad Polish folk song.
Fifteen years after its premiere, a recording of Gorecki’s symphony featuring American soprano Dawn Upshaw and conductor David Zinman received some airplay on a British radio station and quickly soared to the top of the pop charts in the U.K. Radio stations in the U.S. started playing it as well, with the same effect.
Was it a sign of an international religious revival? A delayed reaction to the collapse of Communism in Europe? Even Gorecki himself was perplexed: “Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music,” he wrote. “Somehow I hit the right note—something, somewhere that had been lost to them. I feel they instinctively knew what they needed.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Henryk Gorecki (1933-2010): Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs); Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; David Zinman, cond. Nonesuch 79282
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Marais goes to the movies
Synopsis
It’s an old story: a talented performer sacrifices everything, including his integrity, his happiness, his friends and even his lover to climb to the top, only to realize (too late!) what he has sacrificed along the way.
Yes, thanks to countless Hollywood “show-biz” films, the basic outline is familiar, and, whether based on fact or fiction, has resulted in countless movies: some memorable, some not.
In 1991, a French film was released that combined a little fact — and a lot of fiction — to tell the story of 17th century performer and composer Marin Marais, who was baptized in Paris on today’s date in 1656.
Marais was a virtuoso on the viola da gamba, an early ancestor of the modern cello. Sparked by the period-instrument movement of the late 20th century, interest in Marais’ music had been growing for some time before the release of the film, which was titled Tous les Matins du Monde, which translates as “all the mornings of the world [leave] without [ever] returning.”
Well, it does sounds a lot better in French, and whether or not the film tells the truth about Marais, it does conjure up some haunting images as a backdrop for some equally haunting music from the 17th century.
Music Played in Today's Program
Marin Marais (1656-1728): The Bells of St. Genevieve; Spectre de la Rose Ensemble; Naxos 8.550750
Delius debuts in London
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1899, English composer Frederick Delius mounted at his own expense an all-Delius concert in London, performed by a hand-picked orchestra and well-rehearsed chorus.
Although born and raised in England, Delius had been living as an expat in Europe, so this concert would be the first opportunity for British audiences to hear his music. The opening work on the program, Over the Hills and Far Away, could just as well have described the 37-year old composer’s prior career to the Brits.
The good news was the concert was a great success, with one critic stating “a composer wholly unknown to this country burst upon us with something like the astonishing effect of an unexpected thunderstorm.”
The bad news was almost immediately after the concert, Delius returned to France. The concert’s organizer wrote to him, “I was extremely sorry that you had to go … It was a business mistake, as you would have been the lion of the season … and would have made many useful musical and moneyed friends.”
In fact, it wasn’t until 1907 that the musical and moneyed British conductor Thomas Beecham would discover and champion Delius’s music in his own homeland.
Music Played in Today's Program
Frederick Delius (1862-1934): Over the Hills and Far Away; Royal Philharmonic; Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor; EMI Classics 94653 and Warner Classics 47509
Cowell's 'Seven Rituals'
Synopsis
In all, American composer Henry Cowell composed 20 symphonies, and left sketches for a 21st. On today’s date in 1954, the Louisville Orchestra gave the premiere of Cowell’s Symphony No. 11 (The Seven Rituals of Music).
“There are seven rituals of music in the life of man from birth to death,” so Cowell explained in program notes. He said that these musical rituals included work, play, dance, love, and war, bracketed by the mysteries of birth and death.
Although interest in Cowell’s music has risen steadily since his death in 1965, performances of his symphonies are still rare events. Part of the problem lies in the eclectic range of styles to be found in his music. There is, for example, a Cowell Gaelic Symphony, another Icelandic Symphony, and yet another, influenced by Indian ragas and talas, the Madras Symphony.
This didn’t bother Cowell at all. As he once explained, “I have never deliberately concerned myself with developing a distinctive personal style, but only with the excitement and pleasure of writing music as beautifully, as warmly, and as interestingly as I can.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Henry Cowell (1897-1965): Symphony No. 11 (Seven Rituals of Music); The Louisville Orchestra; Robert S. Whitney, conductor; First Editions 0003
Josiah Flagg, Music Man?
Synopsis
If you wanted to make up a name for a patriotic conductor, bandmaster, impresario, and music publisher from the era of the American Revolution, you probably couldn’t top the name Josiah Flagg.
Believe it or not, a real-life Colonial-Era musician named Josiah Flagg was born on today’s date in 1737, in Woburn, Massachusetts.
He was a business associate of the legendary Paul Revere, who engraved the plates for Flagg’s first big collections of hymn-tunes, published in 1764. Although the music was all by a British composer, it was — symbolically — the first to be printed on American-made paper.
Acting as an impresario, Flagg also organized concerts in Boston for about a decade and gave some of the first Boston performances of music by George Frideric Handel.
In the fall of 1773, Flagg presented a gala concert at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, which proved to be his last. He included excerpts from Handel’s Messiah, but closed with his band’s rendition of the “Song of Liberty,” the marching hymn of the Boston patriots.
Soon after, Flagg moved to Providence, served as a colonel in the Rhode Island regiment during the American Revolution, and disappeared from our early music history.
Music Played in Today's Program
John Greenwood The Hessian Camp First Michigan Colonial Fife and Drum Corps Private release
G.F. Handel (1685 – 1757) Water Music English Concert; Trevor Pinnock, cond. DG 439 147
New Looney Tunes
Synopsis
Many baby boomers confess their introduction to classical music was via classic Warner Brothers Loony Tunes cartoons featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny. Okay, in those cartoons, classical music was parodied, but it was done with great wit and affection — and the tunes in those ‘toons stuck in your memory.
Well, on today’s date in 2020, a new series of Looney Tunes cartoons began streaming online with the launch of HBO Max. Bugs was back, and so were the parodies of classical music.
Joshua Moshier was one of the composers charged with scoring those new Looney Tunes.
“It was certainly intimidating,” he said in an NPR interview.
“There are cartoons like the Road Runner and the Coyote where there’s no dialogue except for a few ‘meep meeps’. But then you realize, ‘Oh — the dialogue is the music.’ The Coyote’s dialogue is the low meandering bassoon. For the Road Runner we referenced ‘The Dance of the Comedians’.”
“Looney Tunes … are caricatures,” Moshier said, “and that allows the music itself to be a caricature. It’s a joy [for a composer] to participate in the comedy in such an overt way and be part of what’s making people laugh.”
Music Played in Today's Program
Joshua Moshier (b. 1986): Excerpts from ‘Buzzard School,’ and ‘TNT Trouble’; Studio orchestra; Joshua Moshier, conductor; From ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons Original Soundtrack: Music by Joshua Moshier and Carl Johnson’ digital album
Carl Stalling (1891-1972): ‘The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down’ (arr. Carl Johnson); Studio orchestra; Carl Johnson, conductor; From ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons Original Soundtrack: Music by Joshua Moshier and Carl Johnson’ digital album