Composers Datebook

SynopsisToday marks the anniversary of the birth of American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920, he would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time — and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical music.Brubeck studied with Schoenberg and Milhaud, and in the late 1940s and ‘50s formed a jazz quartet incorporating Baroque-style counterpoint and unusual time signatures into a style that came to be known as “West Coast” or “cool” jazz, culminating in the 1960 release of a landmark jazz album for Columbia Records, Time Out. This album produced two Hit Parade singles: Blue Rondo à la Turk and Take Five. Ironically, he had to fight to convince Columbia to release an album composed totally of original material with no familiar standards to help sales!In addition to works for chamber-sized jazz combos, Brubeck has written a number of large-scale sacred works, among them a 1975 Christmas Choral Pageant, La Fiesta de la Posada, or, The Festival of the Inn.Originally written to celebrate the restoration of a Spanish mission in California, it wound up being premiered in Hawaii by the Honolulu Symphony. Since its premiere, La Fiesta de la Posada has been performed by both professional and amateur ensembles, ranging from symphony orchestras to mariachi bands. Its premiere recording was made by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting.Music Played in Today's ProgramDave Brubeck (1920-2012): Blue Rondo a la Turk; The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Columbia 40585Dave Brubeck: La Fiesta del Posada; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Columbia Legacy 64669

SynopsisSo what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you’re Moravian-born composer Leoš Janáček, you call it Glagolitic, since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that.The idea came from a clerical friend who complained about the lack of original religious music in Czechoslovakia and suggested Janáček’s do something about it. His Glagolitic Mass premiered in Brno on today’s date in 1927. One reviewer wrote it was “a marvelous religious work of an old composer” — to which Janacek snapped back: “I am not old. And I am certainly not religious!”Now, people do say “you’re only as old as you feel,” and 73-year old Janáček had for many years been in love with a much younger woman who inspired his best works, and rather than any religious convictions, Janacek told another reporter that the piece was in fact jump-started by an electrical storm he witnessed and described as follows: ‘It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it … I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ‘Gospodi pomiluj’ [Love have mercy] and nothing more than the joyous shout ‘Slava, Slava!’ [Glory].”Music Played in Today's ProgramLeoš Janáček (1854-1928): Glagolitic Mass; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; DG 429182

SynopsisTchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto was first performed on today’s date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit.The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: “The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue.” According to Hanslick, the concerto’s finale: “transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian festival. We see gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze … Tchaikovsky’s Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear.”Ouch! Tchaikovsky’s score survived the bad review, but a more recent American work suffered a far unkinder cut. The original film score for the 1968 blockbuster movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by Alex North, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on today's date in 1910. Director Stanley Kubrick hired North to write the music for 2001, but Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-recorded classical and contemporary music instead.When North attended the New York premiere of 2001, he was devastated that not one minute of the music he had written was included in the final edit.Believe it or not, no one had informed him in advance!Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Violin Concerto; Itzhak Perlman, violin; London Symphony; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor; Chesky 12Alex North (1910-1991): Unused Opening Theme for 2001: A Space Odyssey; National Philharmonic; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor; Varese Sarabande 66225

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1885, the Paris Opera gave the first performance of Le Cid, the 11th opera written by the French composer Jules Massenet.Le Cid is set in medieval Spain and tells the story of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, a legendary hero who defended his country against the Moors. The same story inspired a 1961 movie, El Cid, starring — who else? — Charlton Heston.But back in 1890, the New Orleans Opera introduced Massenet’s opera to American audiences and reached New York City in 1897, serving as a vocal showcase for turn-of-the-century superstars of the early Metropolitan Opera. Enrico Caruso made a famous recording of the opera’s most famous excerpt — Rodrigo’s Act III aria, “O souverain, O Juge, O Pere,” which translates as “Oh Lord, Oh Judge, Oh Father.”Unlikely as it may seem, this aria inspired a pop hit in 1981, when composer and performance artist Laurie Anderson translated its opening line as “O Superman, O Judge, O Mom and Dad.” As a credit to the French composer, O Superman is even subtitled For Massenet.Trained as a classical violinist with the Chicago Youth Symphony, Anderson soon shifted to a variety of electronically-altered fiddles, and one of her albums is titled, appropriately, Life on a String.Music Played in Today's ProgramJules Massenet (1842-1912): O Souverain, O Juge, O Pere; from Le Cid; Ben Heppner, tenor; Munich Radio Orchestra; Roberto Abbado, conductor; RCA/BMG 62504

SynopsisIt was on this date in 1825 that the United States had its first date with authentic Italian opera. This was a performance of Gioacchino Rossini's The Barber of Seville, staged at New York City’s Park Theater.The singers were mostly from one extraordinary Spanish family — the Garcias — led by its patriarch Manuel Garcia, a tenor who performed role of Count Almaviva — the same role Garcia had created at the opera’s premiere in Rome nine years earlier.The 1825 New York audience included luminaries from society and the arts — including the American novelist James Fenimore Cooper and Mozart’s one-time librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, who was teaching Italian at Columbia University in those days.November 29th is also important to 20th century American musical theater. Cole Porter’s Gay Divorce opened on Broadway on November 29, 1932, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater.The musical’s title rankled censors who feared it treated divorce too lightly, and they insisted on converting it to the less controversial Gay Divorcee. Cole Porter’s score included one of his classic songs, Night and Day, and, like Rossini before him, Porter claimed to have tailor-made this song for the unusual tenor star of his new show, one Fred Astaire.Music Played in Today's ProgramGioacchino Rossini (1792-1868): Selections from The Barber of Seville; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Neville Marriner, conductor; Philips 412 266Cole Porter (1891-1964): Gay Divorce Overture; London Sinfonietta; John McGlinn, conductor; EMI 68589

SynopsisAccording to historians, the 19th Century was the great age of Romanticism — but tell that to Sergei Rachmaninoff and Howard Hanson! On today’s date, two of their quintessentially Romantic works were both premiered in the 20th century.In 1909, Rachmaninoff came to the U.S. for his first American tour, and on today’s date appeared as the piano soloist in the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 with the New York Symphony. Now, if you believe the movie Shine, this is the most difficult of all Romantic piano concertos. Even its composer confessed he need to practice it on the boat to America!By 1930, when American composer Howard Hanson’s Symphony No. 2 premiered on today’s date in Boston, Romantic music was increasingly considered old fashioned. But he defiantly subtitled his new Symphony The Romantic.“My symphony represents a definite embracing of the Romantic. I recognize, of course, that Romanticism is, at the present time, music’s poor stepchild … Nevertheless, I embrace her all the more fervently, believing as I do that Romanticism will find in this country rich soil for new growth,” he wrote. And how about outer space? Decades after its premiere, Hanson’s popular Romantic Symphony even showed up as part of the film score to the sci-fi classic Alien. Music Played in Today's ProgramSergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943): Piano Concerto No. 3; Martha Argerich, piano; Berlin Radio Symphony; Riccardo Chailly, conductor; Philips 446 673Howard Hanson (1896-1981): Symphony No. 2 (Romantic); RCA Symphony; Charles Gerhardt, conductor; Chesky 112

SynopsisAlso Sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem by Richard Strauss, was first performed in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on this day in 1896, with the composer conducting.For decades thereafter, it was considered one of his lesser works and only occasionally performed. Then, in 1968, Stanley Kubrick chose its opening fanfare as the main theme of his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Suddenly Also Sprach Zarathustra jumped to the top of the classical charts and became a concert hall favorite as well — even though many of its new audiences are surprised when the piece goes on for another half hour after its spectacular opening.Another composer who also benefited from Kubrick’s movie was Hungarian György Ligeti. Initially, Ligeti’s fame was limited to avant-garde circles, but his 1961 composition Atmosphères also became part of the soundtrack and catapulted him to much wider fame. Ligeti’s eerily floating sound-clusters seemed to Kubrick perfect outer space music.Ligeti himself was not happy how his music was used in the film, but, grudgingly, did express admiration for the film’s surreal final sequence. Richard Strauss died in 1949 — some 20 years before Kubrick’s film debuted — but we suspect that hard-headed businessman would have been pleased that his music was used — and would have promptly demanded a hefty cut of Kubrick’s royalties.Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949): Also Sprach Zarathustra; Chicago Symphony; Fritz Reiner, conductor; RCA/BMG 60833György Ligeti (1923-2006): Atmospheres; Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, conductor; Philips 446 403

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1997, violinist Joshua Bell and the San Francisco Symphony gave the premiere performance of an 18-minute Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra by American composer John Corigliano.This music was a concert offshoot of Corigliano’s film score for Francois Gerard’s movie The Red Violin, but debuted months before the film itself was completed.Corigliano said, “I was delighted when asked to compose the score for Francois Girard’s new film. How could I turn down so interesting and fatalistic a journey through almost three centuries, beginning as it did in Cremona, home of history’s greatest violin builders? I also welcomed the producer’s offer to separately create a violin and orchestra concert piece, to be freely based on motives from the film.“I’d assumed that, as usual in film, I wouldn't be required to score it until it was completed, except for a number of on-camera “cues” … Then plans changed. Filming was pushed back. So the present Chaconne was built just on the materials I had; a good thing, as it turns out, because I now had the freedom, as well as the need, to explore these materials to a greater extent than I might have had I been expected to condense an hour’s worth of music into a coherent single movement.”Music Played in Today's ProgramJohn Corigliano (b. 1938): Selections from The Red Violin; Joshua Bell, violin; Philharmonia Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor; Sony 63010

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1955, the Boston Symphony was celebrating its 75th anniversary season with the premiere performance of a brand-new symphony — the sixth — by American composer Walter Piston. At the time, he was teaching at Harvard, and his association with the Boston Symphony went back decades. Even so, he paid the orchestra an extraordinary compliment, crediting its musicians as virtual partners in its composition:“While writing my Symphony No. 6, I came to realize that this was a rather special situation. I was writing for one designated orchestra, one that I had grown up with, and that I knew intimately. Each note set down sounded in the mind with extraordinary clarity, as though played immediately by those who were to perform the work. On several occasions it seemed as though the melodies were being written by the instruments themselves as I followed along. I refrained from playing even a single note of this symphony on the piano,” he wrote. This symphony may have been tailor-made for the Boston players, but Piston was practical enough to know other orchestras would be interested, and so added this important footnote: “The composer’s mental image of the sound of his written notes has to admit a certain flexibility.”Music Played in Today's ProgramWalter Piston (1894-1976): Symphony No. 6; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3074

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1888, Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky premiered his Hamlet-Fantasy Overture. He had been asked to write an overture for a gala charity benefit staging of Act III of Shakespeare’s famous play at the Mariinsky Theatre. Alas, the charity was, as Hamlet might say, “not to be.” But Tchaikovsky so liked the idea of a piece inspired by the mood and characters of Hamlet that wrote the overture anyway.As Hamlet said, “the time is out of joint,” and we fast forward our story almost 100 years to 1982 and another Tchaikovsky — André Tchaikovsky (no relation to Peter Ilyich). André Tchaikovsky was a Polish composer who was also a virtuoso pianist of some note and a wanna-be actor to boot. When André Tchaikovsky died in 1982, he’d asked that his skull be donated to the Royal Shakespeare Company, hoping it would be used for the skull of Yorick in their productions of Hamlet. André Tchaikovsky got his wish in 2008, when his skull was finally held aloft by David Tennant in a series of performances of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, a production that proved so famous that an image of Tennant as Hamlet holding Tchaikovsky’s skull ended up on a British postage stamp.Music Played in Today's ProgramPeter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Hamlet-Fantasy Overture; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Leonard Bernstein, conductor (DG 477670)

SynopsisA question: do you see colors when you hear music? No, we’re not going psychedelic on you, and absolutely no controlled substances are involved in preparing today’s edition of Composers Datebook.It’s just that many composers do — see colors, that is.Romantic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin would describe the key of F-sharp Major as very definitely being “bright blue.” His colleague Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, however, thought F-sharp Major more a greyish-green hue. While many composers confess to seeing certain musical keys as certain colors, the fact is they don’t always agree on which color matches which key.Which brings us to American composer Michael Torke, who gave the title Bright Blue Music to an orchestral piece that premiered on today’s date at Carnegie Hall at a concert of the New York Youth Symphony.In 1985, when this music premiered, Torke was just 24 years old, but had already been composing music for most of his young life. In addition to a string of other “colorful” scores, with titles like The Yellow Pages and Ecstatic Orange, Torke has also gone on to write a number of ballet scores and vocal works, including a TV opera and, in 1999, a big choral symphony for the Disney Corporation to celebrate the Millennium.Music Played in Today's ProgramAlexander Scriabin (1872-1915): Etude No. 4; Piers Lane, piano; Hyperion 66607Michael Torke (b. 1961): Bright Blue Music; Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor

SynopsisAmerican composer Roger Sessions is an acquired taste for most classical music fans, and, truth be told, his works don’t show up on concert recital programs all that often.He was born in the 19th century, 1896, when Grover Cleveland was president, and died in 1985, when Ronald Reagan was in the White House.Session’s early music, written when he was in his twenties and thirties, was neo-classical in style, but as the 20th century progressed, Sessions’ style did also, moving from harmonically complex tonality to frankly atonal works. His music became increasingly “gnarly,” you might say, but there was always a lot of emotion in his music, whatever technique he employed.Take, for example, his Piano Sonata No. 3, nicknamed The Kennedy Sonata. It was written in reaction to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on today’s date in 1963. The last movement of Sessions’ Piano Sonata was written as an elegy for the slain president, and includes a climax of three sharply accented chords. For American pianist William Grant Naboré, one of just a handful of artists who have recorded this work, those three chords suggest the three sharp rifle shots that shattered the air in Dallas the day Kennedy died.Music Played in Today's ProgramRoger Sessions (1896-1985): Sonata No. 3 (Kennedy Sonata); William Grant Naboré, piano; DRC 3002

SynopsisToday, a letter: written on this date in 1615 by Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi to a friend at the court of the Duke of Mantua.The letter accompanied a vocal score that Monteverdi hoped would convince the Duke to commission a much larger work. After detailed instructions regarding the positioning of the singers and the instruments Monteverdi adds — almost as an afterthought — this line: “If you could let the singers and players see the music for an hour before His Highness hears it, it would be a very good thing indeed.”Talk about “authentic performance practice!”It probably took more than an hour’s rehearsal for the U.S. premiere of American composer Steve Reich’s intricate setting of four Hebrew psalm fragments — Tehillim — which took place in Houston, Texas, on today’s date in 1981. Back then, Reich was already famous as one of America’s leading “minimalist” composers, but a search for fresh directions coincided with Reich’s rediscovery of his Jewish heritage, and Tehillim was the result.“For me, the most important aspect of a piece of music, mine or someone else’s, is its emotional and intellectual effect on performers and audiences—I find it basically impossible to separate the emotional and intellectual aspects of a piece of music,” Reich said. Music Played in Today's ProgramClaudio Monteverdi (1567-1643): Orfeo; Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor; Erato 88032Steve Reich (b. 1936): Tehillim; Schoenberg Ensemble; Percussion group The Hague; Reinbert De Leeuw, conductor; Nonesuch 79295

SynopsisGustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 was first heard on this day in Budapest in 1889, with the 29-year-old composer conducting.Originally billed as a “symphonic poem,” a newspaper in Budapest even printed a detailed program, obviously supplied by Mahler himself. For subsequent performance in Europe, Mahler quickly withdrew these “Cliff’s Notes” to his Symphony.Twenty years later, in December of 1909, Mahler conducted its American premiere at Carnegie Hall, during his first season as music director of the New York Philharmonic.The symphony drew mixed reviews:The New York Times wrote, “There are matters in it, that as absolute music, have no evident significance, and that serve merely to puzzle and perplex.” The critic for the Sun took a dislike to the symphony’s finale, suggesting “when the weather is bad in Tyrol, it is beyond the power of language to characterize.”Mahler’s own reactions are recorded in a letter he sent from New York to Bruno Walter back in Europe: “The day before yesterday I did my Symphony No. 1 here, without getting much reaction. However, I myself was fairly pleased with that youthful effort … The audiences here are very lovable and relatively better mannered than in Vienna. They listen attentively and very sympathetically. The critics are the same as anywhere else. I don’t read any of them.”Music Played in Today's ProgramGustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 1; Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, conductor; Virgin 61258

SynopsisThe modern Hungarian city we know as Budapest is really three older settlements merged into one: Buda, on the west bank of the Danube, was the royal seat of the medieval Hungarian kings; Obuda, just to the north, was an ancient Roman provincial capital; and Pest, is a newer city situated on the east bank of the Danube. These three became the modern-day city Budapest in 1873.In 1923, to celebrate modern Budapest’s 50th anniversary, the Hungarian government commissioned two of its greatest composers, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, to compose orchestral pieces which both premiered on today’s date that year.Bartók’s contribution was a lively Dance Suite, with themes reminiscent of Hungarian folk melodies, although no actual folksongs are quoted. It’s one of his most genial and upbeat orchestral scores.Kodály’s contribution was his Psalmus Hungaricus for tenor, chorus and orchestra, a free setting of a 16th century Hungarian translation of Psalm 55, in which the Psalmist pleads for deliverance from his persecutors.That Psalm had a special political resonance for Zoltán Kodály, who had fallen out of favor with the right-wing Hungarian regime then in power. Despite its melancholy tone, Psalmus Hungaricus was an instant hit in Hungary and elsewhere, and helped established Kodály’s international reputation as one of his country’s greatest composers.Music Played in Today's ProgramBéla Bartók (1881-1945): Dance Suite; Philharmonia Hungarica; Antal Dorati, conductor; Mercury 432 017Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967): Psalmus Hungaricus; Lajos Kozma, tenor; Brighton Festival Chorus; London Symphony; István Kertész, conductor; London 443 488

SynopsisToday’s date marks the official birthday of a quintessential American form of 20th century music — for cartoons.It was on November 18, 1928, that the first-ever animated cartoon with its own synchronized soundtrack debuted at the Colony Theater in New York City. This was Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie starring Mickey Mouse, who amazed audiences when he spoke up in a squeaky, falsetto voice provided by none other than Disney himself. Mickey pulled the whistle on his steamboat — a startling sonic effect in those days — and, oblivious of the impending animal rights movement, coaxed music from various squeezed and plucked barnyard colleagues.That music was composed by a quiet, unassuming theater organist out of Kansas City named Carl Stalling, who was soon lured to Hollywood by Disney to work on subsequent Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony cartoons. In 1936, Stalling joined the Warner Brothers studios, and for the next 22 years was the music director for classic Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons.Stalling’s wonderfully wacky and endlessly inventive music was usually ignored by “serious” music critics as beneath notice. Ironically, his scores feature the same dizzying shifts of mood, tempo and instrumentation as the most complex avant-garde scores of the post-war period: Stockhausen and Boulez meet Tweety and Sylvester?Music Played in Today's ProgramCarl Stalling (1888-1974): Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals and To Itch his Own; Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra; Warner Bros. 26027

SynopsisOn today’s date in 2005, the chancel of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis was transformed into a performance stage for vocal soloists, choirs, and the Minnesota Orchestra led by Osmo Vänksä.The occasion was the world premiere performance of a new oratorio, To Be Certain of the Dawn, featuring music by American composer Stephen Paulus and a text by British-born poet Michael Dennis Browne. The Basilica had commissioned the oratorio as a gift to Temple Israel in Minneapolis in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps in 1945.As Paulus explained, the idea for the oratorio began with a former rector of the Catholic basilica, who felt that Christians should acknowledge and teach about the Holocaust as much as — or more so — than Jews. “It was he who decided that an oratorio would be a powerful vehicle for communicating … [and] that children are key to the prevention of genocide, both today and in the future,” he wrote. With telling effect, actual informal photographs of Jewish children taken in European ghettos during the 1930s and 40s were projected onto screens during the performance. As poet Michael Dennis Browne wrote, “The faces of children are the sun, moon and stars of this work.”Music Played in Today's ProgramStephen Paulus (1949-2014): To Be Certain of the Dawn; Minnesota Chorale; Minnesota Boychoir; Basilica Cathedral Choir and Choristers; Minnesota Orchestra; Osmo Vänskä, conductor; Bis CD-1726

SynopsisOn today’s date in 1777, the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck was baffled by Parisian audiences and wrote these lines to a friend:“I am so much disgusted with music that at present that I would not write one single note for any amount of money … Never has a more keenly-fought battle been waged than by the enemies of my new opera, Armide. The intrigues against my previous operas were no more than little skirmishes in comparison. Admirers tell me, ‘Sir, you are fortunate to be enjoying the honor of persecution’ and ‘every genius has had the same experience’— Bah! To the devil with their fine speeches!“Still, yesterday, at the eighth performance of Armide, the hall was so tightly packed that when a man was asked to take off his hat, he replied, ‘Come and take it off yourself, I can’t move my arms!’ — which caused laughter. I have seen people coming out with their hair bedraggled and their clothes drenched as though they had fallen into a stream. Only the French would pay for such an experience!”Gluck would ultimately triumph in Paris and could count among his most ardent supporters none other than the French queen, Marie Antoinette — who presumably had a much cooler and certainly less crowded box at the opera.Music Played in Today's ProgramChristoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787): Act Two Aria from Armide; Rockwell Blake, tenor; Monte Carlo Philharmonic; Patrick Fournillier, conductor; EMI 55058Christoph Willibald von Gluck (1714-1787): Don Juan Ballet Music; Rhine Chamber Orchestra of Cologne; Jan Corazolla, conductor; Christophorus 74507

SynopsisToday’s date marks the anniversary of the first performance of Jerome Kern’s Show Boat, produced in 1927 at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. by Florenz Ziegfeld.Show Boat’s book and lyrics were by Oscar Hammerstein II, adapted from Edna Ferber’s novel, which had been published only the year before. It was a most unusual story for a musical, and dealt frankly with alcoholism and interracial marriage. Mixing tragic and comic elements was something simply unheard of in American musical theater of that time.Ziegfeld’s secretary recalled that before the Washington premiere, he fretted that audiences would be disappointed that the girls on stage were wearing much too much clothing for a typical Ziegfeld show. There was little or no applause following the November 15 premiere, and he assumed that Show Boat was a flop. But the Washington audiences were simply too stunned to react.When Ziegfeld’s secretary told his boss that there were long lines waiting to buy tickets for subsequent performances, at first he didn’t believe it. But by the time Show Boat opened on Broadway the following month, even the great Ziegfeld knew he had a hit on his hands — and one based on great music and a powerful book, with nary a scantily-glad show girl in sight!Music Played in Today's ProgramJerome Kern (1885-1945): Selections from Show Boat; Royal Liverpool Philharmonic; Carl Davis, conductor; EMI 4573

SynopsisIf ever there was a red-letter day in American music, November 14 must surely be it. For starters, it’s the birthday of Aaron Copland, who was born in New York City on today’s date in 1900 — and then there’s all that happened on November 14 in the life of Leonard Bernstein.Here’s how Bernstein explained it: “I never forget a Copland birthday. Two of the most important events of my life happened on November 14 — the first in 1937 when Aaron and I met for the first time … Now, I worried and complained terrifically back then and always took my troubles to Aaron, who would tell me to ’stop whining.’ He seemed to have such complete confidence in me that he didn’t show a bit of surprise when on Sunday, November 14, 1943, I made a dramatic success by filling in for the ailing Bruno Walter and conducting the New York Philharmonic. All Aaron’s predications came true — and on his birthday!”As if that weren’t enough, in 1954, again on Copland’s birthday, Bernstein made his TV debut presenting Beethoven’s draft sketches for the opening of his Symphony No. 5. It proved a smash success — and led to Bernstein’s televised Young Person’s Concerts that brought classical music to millions of Americans coast to coast.Music Played in Today's ProgramAaron Copland (1900-1990): Piano Blues No. 3; James Tocco, piano; MPR 201