For many years now MidAmerica Productions has been organizing concerts in New York City and enlisting choral ensembles from the U.S. and abroad to come to the Big Apple to perform at prestigious Manhattan venues.

On today’s date in 1990, choirs from Arkansas, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas were on stage at Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of John Rutter’s Magnificat, specially commissioned by MidAmerica, and with the British composer himself on hand to conduct.

“The chorus numbered over 200 voices, every one of them happy and excited at the prospect of joining forces in the magnificent setting of Carnegie Hall … [so] I wanted to write something joyous because that would reflect the mood of the performers … the Magnifcat is known as the Canticle of the Blessed Virgin, and it is mainly in the sunny southern countries — Spain, Mexico, Puerto Rico — that Mary is most celebrated … this led me to conceive the music as a bright, Latin-flavored fiesta,” he recalled.

Despite composing and conducting religious music, Rutter confessed during a 2003 interview that he was not particularly religious — just a composer deeply moved and inspired by the spirituality of sacred verses and prayers.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Rutter (b. 1945): Magnificat; Elizabeth Cragg, soprano; Choirs of St. Albans Cathedral; Ensemble DeChorum; Andrew Lucas, conductor; Naxos 8.572653

This lush, late-Romantic score, composed in 1904, had to wait until 1962 for its premiere performance, when, on today’s date that year, the Philadelphia Orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy performed it in Seattle during an international festival devoted to its composer, Anton Webern.

For most music lovers, the Austrian composer is a shadowy, vaguely mysterious figure. If they know anything at all about him, it is that he was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, that he wrote a small body of short, condensed atonal scores, and that in 1945 he was shot by accident by an American soldier in the tense days following the end of World War II.

The early orchestral score that received its belated premiere on today’s date in 1962, In the Summer Wind, was completed when Webern was just 19. It’s very much in the style of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and early Schoenberg.

To earn a living, Webern worked as a conductor of everything from Viennese operettas to worker’s choral unions. His conducting career came to a halt when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, and until his untimely death in 1945, Webern lived by doing routine work for a Viennese music publisher.

Music Played in Today's Program

Anton von Webern (1883-1945): Im Sommerwind; Cleveland Orchestra; Christoph von Dohnanyi, conductor; London 436 240

On today’s date in 1803, violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower, 33, and pianist and composer Ludwig van Beethoven, 32, gave the first performance in Vienna of a new sonata for violin and piano, a chamber work now regarded as one of Beethoven’s greatest.

At the first rehearsal, Bridgetower had to read from Beethoven’s manuscript score — no easy task considering Beethoven’s poor penmanship — and at one point felt compelled to improvise a passage, which so enchanted Beethoven that he added Bridgetower’s improvisation to his score. In fact, the two young men became fast friends, and were inseparable for a time.

Bridgetower was an English violin virtuoso born in Poland of a European mother and an African father. His Viennese friendship with Beethoven came to a sudden end, he later claimed, when the two men became interested in the same young lady.

And so, even though it should be known as the Bridgetower Sonata, when this music was published as Beethoven’s Op. 47, Beethoven dedicated the music to another contemporary virtuoso, a French violinist named Kreutzer, who apparently never performed it. Despite that fact, to this day, the work is known as Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Violin Sonata No. 9 (Kreutzer); Pamela Frank, violin; Claude Frank, piano; MusicMasters 67087

Some famous composers were notorious perfectionists — and then there was Johannes Brahms, the perfectionist of perfectionists. He spent 14 years tinkering with the score of his Symphony No. 1, remember.

He once claimed he had written and discarded twenty string quartets before publishing his first two in the year 1873. To say Brahms was his own severest critic would be putting it mildly, but there was one other person whose opinion he valued above all others, and that was Clara Schumann, one of the finest pianists of her day, the widow of his mentor Robert Schumann, and a fine composer in her own right.

So it comes as no surprise that Brahms’ String Quartet No. 3, the Quartet in B-flat Major, published as his Opus 67, was first performed as a kind of “test run” at the Berlin home of Clara Schumann on today’s date in the year 1876. The performers were the famous Joachim Quartet, led by violinist Joseph Joachim, a long-time friend of Brahms.

Unlike his preceding quartets, both austere and introspective works, this one was light-hearted and cheerful — “a useless trifle,” as he put it, adding it was just his way to “avoid facing the serious countenance of a symphony.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): String Quartet No. 3

German composer Richard Strauss wrote his first song at 6, and his last at 84, a year before his death in 1949. Four of his last songs were for soprano and orchestra. These Four Last Songs, as they came to be known, were premiered in London, at the Royal Albert Hall, on today’s date in 1950.

Strauss had written to great Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, suggesting “I would like to make it possible that [the songs] should be at your disposal for a world premiere … with a first-class conductor and orchestra.” Flagstad did sing the premiere performances, with the first-rate Philharmonia Orchestra of London conducted by the legendary German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler.

In addition to those famous performers, credit for the realization of Strauss’ request is also due to the Maharaja of Mysore, who put up a cash guarantee for the Strauss premiere. And since he could not be present, he asked that the premiere be recorded and the discs shipped to him in Mysore.

The Maharaja had wanted to be concert pianist, but the deaths of both his father and his uncle forced him to succeed to the throne in 1940 at 21. In addition to underwriting the Strauss premiere, the young Maharaja championed the music of Russian composer Nikolas Medtner, and, in 1945, the creation of the Philharmonia Orchestra of London as a recording ensemble for enterprising EMI producer Walter Legge.

In addition to Western classical music, the Maharaja was passionate about the court music of his native land, and, under the pen name of Shri Vidya, composed almost 100 works in the South Indian tradition.

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): “Im Abendrot (At Twlight),” from Four Last Songs; Jessye Norman, soprano; Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra; Kurt Masur, conductor; Philips CD 464 742

At Westminster Abbey on today’s date in 1998 a haunting new setting of the Latin mass written by British composer Roxanna Panufnik received its premiere performance.

Panufnik was born in London in 1968, and if her family name sounds familiar, it’s because her father was Andrzej Panufnik, one of the greatest Polish composers of the 20th century.

Her interest in music began early: “I was three years old … when I said ‘Mummy, I want a violin with a stick to make it sing!’ I started violin, piano and flute. But I only wanted to make up my own music. When I was 12, [the composer] Oliver Knussen, visiting my parents, told me I should write down my improvisations. It all went from there.”

And in response to questions about having a famous composer as her father, she said: “My father had enormous integrity, always teaching me to be myself … Early in my career I was very sensitive to being compared to him and a few stray remarks about nepotism dented my confidence. However, I plodded on and now I’m thrilled to be regularly programmed alongside him and I’m so proud of where and who I came from.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Roxanna Panufnik (b. 1968): ‘Westminster Mass’; Westminster Cathedral Choir; James O’Donnell, conductor; Teldec 28069

These days composer John J. Becker is almost totally forgotten, but back in the 1930s his name was linked with Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger as one of the American Five composers of what was dubbed “ultra-modern” music.

From 1928 to 1935, Becker taught at the College of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and briefly assembled a Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra to give Midwest premieres of works by Ives and other ultra-modernists. From 1935 to 1941, Becker was the Minnesota State director of the Federal Music Project, one of President Roosevelt’s initiatives to provide work for American musicians during the Depression years.

On today's date in 1937, at the old St. Paul Auditorium, Becker conducted the Federal Music Project's Twin Cities Orchestra in a program that included the premiere performance of his own Symphony No. 3, subtitled Symphonia Brevis.

This ultra-modern symphony was met with an ultra-conservative review in The Saint Paul Pioneer Press, whose critic wrote: “It consists of spasmodic little excursions … percussive barrages… ideas that seem to run out before the score comes to a close, with the consequent suggestion of that spurious vitality exhibited by decapitated fowls.”

Decades later, three years before his death in 1961, Becker, along with a few other surviving members of the American Five, was invited to take a bow from the stage of Carnegie Hall at one of Leonard Bernstein's New York Philharmonic concerts which featured his Sinfonia Brevis.

Music Played in Today's Program

John J. Becker (1886-1961): Sinfonia Brevis; Symphony No. 3; Louisville Orchestra; Jorge Mester, conductor; Albany TROY-027

On today’s date in 2013, a new work by 90-year old German-born American composer and teacher named Ursula Mamlok received its premiere performance in Switzerland. Five Fantasy Pieces for oboe and strings was given its premiere by great Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger and colleagues.

Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923 and began composing as a child. Her family was Jewish, and once the Nazis placed school music programs off limits to Jews, her family began holding musicales in their home, with Ursula writing the music.

After the Crystal Night pogrom in 1938, her family left Germany, and, via Ecuador, young Ursula came to America after being offered a full scholarship to study at the Mannes School of Music in New York. She became an American citizen and began teaching most notably the Manhattan School of Music.

The bulk of Mamlok’s music is for small chamber ensembles, and only once she tried to create a purely electronic piece. In a 1996 interview, she confessed, “Unfortunately I have no connection to it … I put it together in the studio at Columbia in New York, but it took too long. I said, ‘I can’t do this.’ I’d rather use the pencil.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Ursula Mamlok (1923-2016): Five Fantasy Pieces (2012/13); Heinz Holliger, oboe; Hanna Weinmeister, violin; Jurg Dahler, viola; Daniel Heaflinger, cello; Bridge 9457

In Costa Mesa, California, on today’s date in 2014, the Pacific Chorale premiered a new choral opera. And what exactly is a choral opera you ask? Good question — and one that puzzled Jake Heggie as well, since he was the composer commissioned for that occasion.

He and his librettist Gene Sheer at first scratched their heads. As Heggie put it, “Operas require action, characters, conflicts, journeys, transformation movement. Choirs stand still and make beautiful sound.”

They came up with a unique solution involving one character, Nora, a silent, on-stage actress, whose inner thoughts are sung by half of the choir. The other half expresses the sounds and surroundings of the outside world she chooses to hear on a day in her life on which everything seems to go wrong — starting with a returned, unopened, handwritten letter she had sent, pouring out her heart, to her jerk of a boyfriend. Even her apartment furniture gets in a word or two about her unhappy state. And where does she turn for comfort? Why, to the radio of course — hence the title of the new choral opera: The Radio Hour.

Spoiler alert: the opera ends on a hopeful note for poor Nora.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jake Heggie (b. 1961): The Radio Hour; John Alexander Singers; Pacific Symphony members; John Alexander, conductor; Delos 3484

Today, a tip of the hat to the persistence of Elisa Hall, who lived in Boston from 1853 to 1924.

Hall was a Francophile and championed the best and the latest in French music. Sadly, she suffered from a hearing ailment, which would eventually result in complete deafness. At the advice of her doctor, who thought it might stimulate her ears, she took up the saxophone — and with typical enthusiasm soon began commissioning the leading French composers of the day for new pieces for her instrument.

In all, she commissioned 22 works, the most famous being by Claude Debussy. He at first refused Hall’s persistent offers of a commission, pleading the saxophone was “a reed animal with whose habits he was poorly acquainted.”

Debussy was paid in advance, but it was years before delivered a short rhapsody in a vaguely Moorish style. In May of 1919, one year after his death, the orchestration of the piece was completed by his friend, Jean Roger-Ducasse, and premiered in Paris.

Hall apparently never performed it herself. Maybe she was exasperated by the long delay or perhaps, by 1919, her own hearing had deteriorated to the point where she no longer could.

Music Played in Today's Program

Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra; Kenneth Radnofsky, alto saxophone; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 13133

Today we have a letter to read, written by Mozart in the middle of May in the year 1778. Mozart was in Paris, 22 years old, and had this to say to his father back in Salzburg:

“I think I told you in my last letter, that the Duc de Guines plays the flute extremely well, and that his daughter is my pupil in composition. She also plays the harp magnifique. She has a great deal of talent, even genius, and in particular a marvelous memory so that she can play all her pieces, actually about 200, by heart. It is, however, extremely doubtful as to whether she has any talent for composition, especially as regards invention or ideas.”

The Duc de Guines was the former French ambassador to London and believed by Mozart’s father to be in the inner circle of the French Queen Marie Antoinette, and hence a contact well worth cultivating. De Guines commissioned Mozart to write a double concerto for himself on flute and daughter on harp. Mozart complied with a courtly Concerto in C Major. Four months after delivering the music, Mozart had to report to his father that he still hadn't seen any payment for his efforts!

Music Played in Today's Program

W.A. Mozart (1756-1791): Concerto for Flute and Harp; Emmanuel Pahud, flute; Marie-Pierre Langlamet, harp; Berlin Philharmonic; Claudio Abbado, conductor; EMI 57128

If you Google “Verdi” and “Royal Albert Hall,” you’ll probably be directed to a fine Italian restaurant named after the famous Italian opera composer that is located in that famous British concert venue, but back in 1875 the combination of Verdi and the Royal Albert Hall meant not a hot meal — but a hot ticket — for Londoners.

On today’s date that year a chorus of over 1000 and an orchestra of 150 assembled at Royal Albert Hall to give the U.K. premiere of Verdi’s Requiem Mass, a brand-new sacred work to be conducted by the composer himself.

Verdi’s “Requiem” had received its world premiere performance almost exactly one year earlier — on May 22, 1874 to be exact — at the Church of San Marco in Milan, a performance also conducted by the composer. Although it was premiered in a church, just three days later Verdi brought his Requiem to Milan’s La Scala opera house and cast the lead singers from his latest opera Aida as its four vocal soloists.

Commentators ever since have noted shared musical similarities of mood, color, and drama in these two works, and quipped Verdi’s “Requiem” might just be his greatest opera.

Music Played in Today's Program

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): “Sanctus” from Requiem; Monteverdi Choir; Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique; John Eliot Gardner, conductor; Decca 441142

Today marks the birthday of one of the most prolific 19th century women composers. Emilie Luise Friderica Mayer was born May 14, 1812 in the German town of Friedland, the third of five children and the eldest daughter of a well-to-do pharmacist. No one else in her family was musically inclined, but after the death of her father when she was 28, a comfortable inheritance enabled her to devote the rest of her life to music and composition.

Despite the barriers to women as composers in her time, Mayer wrote and published orchestral and chamber works — including eight symphonies over a dozen concert overtures — and starting in the 1840s through to the time of her death in 1883, got them performed in Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and Vienna.

Her early works are very much in the classical Viennese tradition of Beethoven, but as the decades passed, her style became much more in the high Romantic style. For most of the 20th century her works remained largely forgotten, but a 21st century reappraisal has resulted in new interest, recordings and performances of the symphonies and overtures of Emilie Mayer.

Music Played in Today's Program

Emilie Mayer (1812-1883): Symphony No. 4; New Brandenburg Philharmonie; Stefan Malzew, conductor; Capriccio 5339

On today’s date in 1875, American conductor Theodore Thomas, a passionate advocate for both old and new music, led the Cincinnati May Festival in the first American performance of J.S. Bach’s Magnificat.

Bach composed this work in 1723, originally for Christmas use in Leipzig, then revised the score in 1733. The American premiere, 142 years after that, was also revised, since the original instrumentation was expanded for large 19th century orchestra and Bach probably would have been astonished at the size of the Cincinnati chorus.

Bach’s Magnificat served as the opener for a Festival performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. The Beethoven was a huge success, and Cincinnati newspapers reported that “Ninth Symphomania” was breaking out in their city.

The newspapers were less impressed with Bach’s Magnificat. The Cincinnati Commercial Review opined: “The work is difficult in the extreme … most of the chorus abounds with rambling sub-divisions. We considering the Magnificat the weakest thing the chorus has undertaken … possessing no dramatic character and incapable of conveying the magnitude of the labor that has been expended upon its inconsequential intricacies.”

Well, whatever they thought in 1875, we suspect American audiences and performers have a gotten a little more used to Bach’s “inconsequential intricacies” since then.

Music Played in Today's Program

J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Magnificat

On this date in 1926, 19-year old composer and sometime silent film piano accompanist Dimitri Shostakovich saw his Symphony No. 1 performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic.

It must have been a heady experience for the young composer, who for the past two years had earned a living of sorts accompanying silent films at various Leningrad cinemas.

One evening, while accompanying the film Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden, he was so carried away by his own improvisations of bird song that he assumed the catcalls and noisy expressions of disapproval from the audience were directed at the film, not at him. Only afterwards was he told the audience had assumed he must have been drunk. In later years, Shostakovich would tell this story with some pride — at least they had noticed his music!

The Leningrad Philharmonic’s performance of his symphony, the first of his orchestral works to be performed in public, was a triumph and established Shostakovich as a major new talent.

May 12 was a date Shostakovich would commemorate till the end of his life — if for no other reason than he would never again have to improvise piano accompaniment to cinematic masterworks like Swamp and Water Birds of Sweden.

Music Played in Today's Program

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; Cracow Philharmonic; Gilbert Levine, conductor; Arabesque 6610

Although contemporaries, Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss were two very different human beings. Mahler was tormented by self-doubt and existential angst; Strauss was a placid soul, self-confident to the point of complacency. Still, Mahler and Strauss admired and conducted each other’s music, and their odd friendship is reflected in their published correspondence.

On today’s date in 1911, for example, on learning Mahler had been ill, but was recovering, Strauss wrote a gracious letter to his fellow composer-conductor:

“I learn with great pleasure that you are recovering from your long illness. Perhaps it might be a happy diversion for you during the melancholy hours of convalescence to know I plan to perform your Symphony No. 3 with the Royal Orchestra in Berlin next winter. It is an excellent orchestra. If you would like to conduct yourself, it would be my pleasure to hear your lovely work again under your own direction — much as I would like to conduct it myself. I would be glad to rehearse the orchestra for you, so you would have no trouble and only the pleasure of conducting.”

Sadly, Strauss was poorly-informed about Mahler’s recovery and the gravity of his illness. Mahler died seven days after Strauss penned the letter.

Music Played in Today’s Program

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 3; London Symphony Orchestra; Jascha Horenstein, conductor; Unicorn 2006-7

Australian composer Barrington Pheloung’s music might not be familiar to concertgoers, but if you watch public television’s Mystery series, you’ve probably heard a lot of his work.

He composed music for the British Inspector Morse TV series, chronicling the cases of a Thames Valley police inspector and his loyal assistant, Robbie Lewis, and once explained how he came up with the haunting Inspector Morse theme:

“Morse is a very melancholic character ... and he was a lover of classical music ... He has a very cryptic mind and loves doing crosswords; we came up with the obvious idea — his name is Morse and so we used Morse code in the [theme] music.” He said the tapped code for M-O-R-S-E created a rhythm and even suggested a harmonic structure: “I picked up my guitar and there was the tune.”

Pheloung was born on today’s date in 1954 in Sydney, Australia, played drums and guitar as a kid, discovered Bach as a teen, and ended up earning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. He composed music for dance, films and TV, including Lewis, the sequel to the successful Inspector Morse series.

Music Played in Today's Program

Barrington Pheloung (1954-2019): Theme from Inspector Morse; The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra; James Fitzpatrick, conductor; Silva Screen Records 4729

On today’s date in 1911, the Independent Music Society of Paris sponsored an anonymous concert at which the audience was invited to guess the composers of a number of pieces presented without attribution.

Professional music critics were also in attendance, although they prudently refused to reveal their guesses, fearing their professional reputations might suffer as a result. In the audience was the French composer Maurice Ravel, who had agreed to let some of his new piano pieces be performed as part of the experiment.

“The title Valses nobles et Sentimentales is a sufficient indication that my intention was to compose a chain of waltzes following the example of Schubert,” Ravel wrote. “They were performed for the first time, amidst protests and booing, at this concert.”

Even more droll, he recalled, were the reactions of some his most ardent admirers, who didn't know any of his own music would be played. They jeered at his waltzes, calling them “ridiculous” and ventured the guess the composer must be either Satie or Kodaly. Ravel accepted their comments in stoic silence.

The audience proved more astute than Ravel’s friends, however. “The paternity of the waltzes was correctly attributed to me, but by a weak majority,” he recalled.

Music Played in Today's Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Valses Nobles et Sentimentales; Minnesota Orchestra; Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, conductor; Analogue 007

On today’s date in 1938, a musical soirée was held at Dumbarton Oaks, a magnificent house on the crest of a wooded valley in Washington, D.C. This was the home of Robert and Mildred Bliss.

Robert had retired from a distinguished career in the U.S. Foreign Service, which included a posting in St. Petersburg in 1907, around the same time a young Russian composer name Igor Stravinsky was getting some of his first public performances there.

The Blisses commissioned Stravinsky to write a chamber work to be premiered at their 30th wedding anniversary, a work now known as the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto.

“A little concerto in the style of the Brandenburg Concertos,” was how Stravinsky put it, adding, “I played Bach very regularly during the composition of the concerto, and I was greatly attracted to the Brandenburg Concertos. Whether or not the first theme of my first movement is a conscious borrowing from the third of the Brandenburg set, however, I do not know. What I can say is that Bach would most certainly have been delighted to loan it to me; to borrow in this way was exactly the sort of thing he liked to do.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): Dumbarton Oaks Concerto

On today’s date in 1937, the NBC radio network was carrying a live broadcast from the Cincinnati May Festival of a new oratorio The Ordering of Moses, inspired by the Biblical book of Exodus. The music was by 54-year old Canadian-born American composer, organist, pianist and music professor named Robert Nathaniel Dett.

Curiously, about 40 minutes into the live broadcast, which should have lasted a full hour, the NBC announcer broke in, stating, “We are sorry indeed, ladies and gentlemen, but due to previous commitments, we are unable to remain for the closing moments of this excellent performance.”

A live recording of the broadcast, preserved on scratchy acetate discs, documents that moment for posterity. No one knows for certain why the broadcast was cut short, but some have speculated that angry calls to NBC’s Southern affiliate stations might have been the reason, because Dett was African-American.

77 years later, in 2014, American conductor James Conlon led the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus in another live, broadcast performance of Dett’s oratorio, this time complete and uninterrupted from the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York City. That live performance was also recorded, this time digitally, and made available for posterity on a commercial release.

Music Played in Today's Program

R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943): The Ordering of Moses; Soloists; Cincinnati May Festival Chorus; Cincinnati Symphony; James Conlon, conductor; Bridge CD 9462

As far as anniversary gifts go, the one Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg received in 1920 was pretty spectacular. To celebrate his 25th year as Music Director of the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, they staged a special month-long festival in honor of one of Mengelberg’s favorite composers — Gustav Mahler, the Austrian composer of monumental symphonies, who had, in fact, conducted the Concertgebouw several times before his untimely death at 50 in 1911.

Mahler was the conductor Mengelberg admired most, and Mengelberg and his orchestra were ardent champions of Mahler’s symphonies, too: their 1920 festival performed all nine of them over the course of two weeks that May.

Mahler’s widow Alma was in attendance, as were his younger Austrian contemporaries Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, Danish composer Carl Nielsen and a young British conductor and Mahler fan named Adrian Boult, who reported on the festival for a British newspaper back home.

In 1995, the Concertgebouw staged another Mahler Festival on the 75th anniversary of the 1920 one, this time inviting the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic to participate. A hundredth-anniversary festival was planned for May 2020, but the COVID pandemic forced that Mahler cycle to be postponed until May 2025. Good things come to all who wait.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 1 (Titan); Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Riccardo Chailly, conductor; London/Decca 448813

Do you believe in angels? It seems Finnish composer Einojuhanni Rautavaara did — and produced a number of orchestral pieces with evocative titles like Angels and Visitations or Angel of Light. One of these, a concerto for double-bass and orchestra titled, Angel of Dusk, had its premiere performance on today's date in 1981, in Helsinki.

“Looking out the window of a plane, I saw a strikingly shaped cloud, gray but pierced with color, rising above the Atlantic horizon. Suddenly, the words Angel of Dusk came to mind,” he wrote. When asked to write a double-bass concerto, he recalled the vision of the cloud and had his title.

In an interview, Rautavaara spoke of a scientist who wrote that “the existence of music is an intellectual scandal. With that he meant that there is a message in music, and yet there are no words for that message. It’s from another world. For a scientist that is a scandal. For me, it’s a wonderful thing. In the end, I agree with Carl Jung. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him,” he explained.

Music Played in Today's Program

Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016): Angel of Dusk; Olli Kosonen, double bass; Finnish Radio Symphony; Leif Segerstam, conductor; Finlandia 009

Benjamin Britten was the most famous English opera composer of the 20th century, but ironically his first opera, Paul Bunyan, had an American theme and premiered at Columbia University in New York City on today's date in 1941.

Britten lived in America from 1939 to 1942. When his American publisher suggested he write something that could be performed by any high school, his good friend, British poet W.H. Auden fashioned a libretto around the tall tales of the mythical American folk hero, the giant logger Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.

The New York Times review of the premiere of Paul Bunyan was a mixture of praise and pans. “Mr. Britten is a very clever young man,” wrote Olin Downes, but firmly suggested the young composer was capable of much better things.

His next opera, Peter Grimes, would receive its world premiere in London, in 1945, by which time Britten was back in England for good, but like Paul Bunyan had an American connection: it was originally commissioned for $1000 by the Koussevitsky Foundation of Boston, and so received its American premiere at the Berkshire Music Festival in 1946 under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.

Music Played in Today's Program

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): Paul Bunyan Overture; English Chamber Orchestra; Philip Brunelle, conductor; Virgin 45093

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976): “Sea Interludes” from Peter Grimes; BBC Symphony; Andrew Davis, conductor; Teldec 73126

On today's date in 1953, at New York’s 92nd Street YMCA, the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult String Quartet No. 1 by American composer Elliott Carter.

Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce — an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive and in every way grand — the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson.

That same year Carter’s quartet won First Prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium — a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My Quartet No. 1 was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize.

Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years — although the composer himself insisted that fantasy and invention, rather than difficulty for its own sake, had always been his goal.

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): String Quartet No. 1; The Composers Quartet; Nonesuch 71249

On today's date in 1953, at New York’s 92nd Street YMCA, the Walden String Quartet tackled the difficult String Quartet No. 1 by American composer Elliott Carter.

Carter's Quartet was as densely-packed with ideas as a page from James Joyce — an author the composer cited as an influence. But, writing for the Herald Tribune, composer Virgil Thomson gave the work a glowing review: “The piece is complex of texture, delicious in sound, richly expressive and in every way grand — the audience loved it,” wrote Thomson.

That same year Carter’s quartet won first prize in the International String Quartet competition in Belgium — a contest Carter entered almost as an afterthought. “My Quartet No. 1 was written largely for my own satisfaction and grew out of an effort to understand myself,” he said. To escape from the distractions of New York, Carter retreated to the desert near Tucson to write it. No one had commissioned the quartet, and Carter initially feared its complexity would baffle performers and audiences. His next quartet, equally challenging, won a Pulitzer Prize.

Complexity would characterize Carter's music for the next 50 years — although the composer himself insisted that fantasy and invention, rather than difficulty for its own sake, had always been his goal.

Music Played in Today's Program

Elliott Carter (1908-2012): String Quartet No. 1; The Composers Quartet; Nonesuch 71249

Today marks the anniversary of the first performance of the best-known work of Swiss-born American composer, Ernest Bloch, whose Hebrew Rhapsody: Schelomo, for cello and orchestra, premiered at Carnegie Hall on today’s date in 1917. The piece is a meditation on the Book of Ecclesiastes, which describes King Solomon reflecting sadly on the vanity of human endeavor — Schelomo being the original Hebrew pronunciation of Solomon.

Schelomo premiered just a year after Bloch came to the United States. In America, Bloch had found encouragement and remarkable acceptance of his music. His Schelomo was premiered at an all-Bloch concert at Carnegie Hall arranged by The Society of the Friends of Music with the Philadelphia orchestra’s principal cellist Hans Kindler as soloist.

Schelomo was originally written with Russian cellist Serge Alexander Barjansky in mind, and was dedicated to him and his wife; but it was not until a concert in Rome in 1933, a fateful year for European Jewish communities, that Bloch got to conduct the work with Barjansky as soloist. Despite his success in America, he tried to resume his career in Europe in the 1930s, but, discouraged by the rise of anti-Semitism and threats of war, he returned to American for good in 1938.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): Schelomo; Mischa Maisky, cello; Israel Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; DG 427 347

The marimba is a percussion instrument of tuned bars, usually made of wood, arranged like the keys of a piano. These bars are struck with mallets to produce resonate, rounded — and, well, woody — musical tones.

The marimba was developed in Mexico and Guatemala, inspired by instruments native to Africa reconstructed in the New World by enslaved Africans in Central America. By the mid-20th century, the marimba was showing up in jazz ensembles, and classical composers would, on occasion, even write a marimba concerto or two. More recently, massed marimbas make up a sonorous, albeit stationary, component of hyper-kinetic drum and bugle corps spectaculars.

Contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon loves the sound of the marimba, and so in 2006 wrote a piece for three marimbas, Splendid Wood.

‘Splendid Wood’ is a joyous celebration of the sound of wood, one of nature’s most basic materials. Wood is a part of all sorts of things in our world, but is used most thrillingly and gloriously in instruments. This work reflects the evolving patterns inside a piece of wood, always shifting, and yet every part is related and contributes to the magnificent of the whole,” she said.

Splendid Wood was commissioned by Bradford and Dorothea Endicott for the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble and had its New York premiere on today’s date in 2007, by the Mannes Percussion Ensemble under the direction of James Preiss.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Splendid Wood; New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; Naxos 8.559683

For American conductor and composer Bernard Herrmann, 1940 was a busy year. On the East Coast, he had been appointed chief conductor of the CBS Radio Symphony; on the West Coast, he was busy in Hollywood, scoring Citizen Kane for director Orson Welles.

Herrmann was 30 at the time and recalled: “I was given twelve weeks to do my job. I worked on the film reel by reel, as it was being shot and cut. This way I had a sense of the picture being built and of my own music being a part of that building. Many sequences were actually tailored to match the music.”

The finished product was released to the public on today’s date in 1941, and was an instant success, with The New York Times review noting “the stunning manner in which the music of Bernard Herrmann has been used.”

Although nominated for Best Picture and Best Musical Score, the film didn’t win either Oscar in 1941. No matter — for many film makers, film critics, and film fans, Citizen Kane rates No. 1 among the greatest films ever made.

Music Played in Today's Program

Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975): Citizen Kane film score (opening); National Philharmonic; Charles Gerhardt, conductor; RCA CD 707

At New York’s Alice Tully Hall on today’s date in 2003, the Avalon Quartet gave the first complete performance of a new four-movement string quartet, Sun Threads, by American composer Augusta Read Thomas.

Each movement of the new work has its own evocative title and had been premiered previously as stand-alone pieces by a consortium of ensembles: the first movement, Eagle at Sunrise, by the Ying Quartet; the second, Invocations, by the Miami Quartet; the third, Fugitive Star, by the Avalon Quartet; and the fourth, Rise Chanting, by the Alexander Quartet.

As the poetic titles indicate, Thomas is not afraid of emotion in music, but insists on internal logic as well, and said:

“I believe my music must be passionate, involving risk and adventure, such that a given musical moment might seem like a surprise right when you hear it but, only a millisecond later, seems inevitable … One of my main artistic credos has been to examine small musical objects — a chord, a motive, a rhythm, a color — and explore them from every possible perspective. The different perspectives reveal new musical elements, which I then transform and which in turn become the musical development.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964): Eagle at Sunrise from Sun Threads; Walden Chamber Players; ART CD 1992007

On today’s date in 1784, Italian violinist Regina Strinasacchi gave a concert in Vienna and had the good sense to commission a new work for the occasion from an up-and-coming young Austrian composer named Wolfgang Mozart.

“We have the famous Strinasacchi from Mantua here right now. She is a very good violinist, has excellent taste, and a lot of feeling in her playing — I’m composing a sonata for her at this moment that we’ll be performing together on Thursday,” he wrote to his father.

Wolfgang’s papa must have been pleased about the cash commission, but might have frowned to learn that Strinasacchi received her part barely in time for the performance, and that his son hadn’t even bothered to write out his own part in full. Also, Regina and Wolfgang never got together to rehearse prior to the concert, which meant that she was probably sight-reading her part, and he improvising his.

No matter — the new sonata was received warmly and afterward Wolfgang had a whole month to dot all the musical i’s and cross all the musicals t’s in his score before it was printed. And, for the record, this Violin Sonata No. 32 is arguably one of Mozart’s finest.

Music Played in Today's Program

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791): Violin Sonata No. 32