Composers Datebook

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Elgar's Fifth Sep 18, 2026

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On today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, British composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5,the last in this popular series.

Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him.

In 1930, Elgar was 73 and liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given him some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, he got the idea for the musical themes of his new march on a drive through the countryside with a friend. He suddenly asked for something on which he could jot down his ideas. All the driver could produce was a road map of Worcestershire — so on its margins the first notes of his new score were scribbled.

The march proved to be one of his last new orchestral works. He had planned to write a sixth Pomp and Circumstance March, a kind of soldier’s funeral march, he said, but he died in 1934.

Music Played in Today's Program

Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; André Previn, conductor; Philips 454 250

Sierra's 'La Salsa' Sep 17, 2026

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The Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads — and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well.

For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download.

Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, La Salsa, turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and his native Puerto Rico for its basic materials, referencing riffs and rhythmic patterns familiar to salsa dancers for the work’s outer movements, with a slow second movement in habañera form.

“Puerto Rican music, especially salsa and folkloric music, has been in my compositional DNA. The vitality of the rhythms and the unique way in which melodic structure merge with the rhythms has inspired me to the present day. I always remember with nostalgia my childhood experiences in the Puerto Rican countryside, and these feelings of longing are also present in my work,” he said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Roberto Sierra (b. 1953): Sinfonia No. 3 (La Salsa); Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra; Andreas Delfs, conductor; MSO Classics MSO11 (digital download)

Shostakovich on Broadway? Sep 16, 2026

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On today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London.

Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two, was called the Tahiti Trot.

Late in 1927, on a dare from conductor Nikolai Malko, 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the following year, and Shostakovich, who had a soft spot for musicals and operettas, incorporated his Tahiti Trot into his new ballet, The Age of Gold.

Just three years later, however, Soviet authorities decided that the foxtrot was just one more vestige of Western decadence, and Shostakovich quickly moved to disassociate himself from anything remotely connected to Broadway. His name even appeared on an open letter suggesting, “Only after thorough and widespread educational work on the class essence of light music will we succeed in liquidating it from Soviet society.”

In other words, “Nyet, Nyet!” to “Nanette!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Vincent Youmans (1898-1946): No, No Nanette Overture; Broadway cast album; Columbia 30563

Gisela Hernández Sep 15, 2026

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Today’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández.

She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and promoted concerts of Cuban music. In 1949, she formed and directed a Women’s Choir and was named professor of harmony, music history, pedagogy and composition at the National Music Conservatory in Havana. She was also a member of the nationalistic Grupo Minorista of composers who incorporated Afro-Cuban traditions into their music.

Hernández wrote pieces for solo piano and chamber music, as well as choral and orchestral works. She is also credited with being one of the first, and most important composers of Cuban art songs. She died in 1971 at 59, and her music is only recently becoming better known outside of Cuba.

Music Played in Today's Program

Gisela Hernández (1912-1971): Cubanas for Piano: No. 3, Guajira; Juana Zayas, piano; Music & Arts MACD-1069

Tan Dun and Beethoven – in (and out) of China Sep 14, 2026

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On this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms and American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the first time an American orchestra had performed in Communist China. The orchestra was invited to China following the famous visit of President and Mrs. Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

In the audience for one of these historic concerts was a young student of traditional Chinese music, Tan Dun. When he heard the Philadelphians perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, a work he had never heard before, he decided then and there to become a composer. In 1986, he came to New York City, and since then has managed to combine elements of East and West into his own musical works.

In 1987, for example, he composed a violin concerto Out of Peking Opera, which draws on both Chinese and European traditions. In addition to prestigious awards and commissions from major foundations and orchestras, in March of 2001, Dun won an Oscar for his film score to the Ang Lee film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 5; Royal Philharmonic; René Leibowitz, conductor; Chesky 17

Tan Dun (b. 1957): Out of Peking Opera; Cho-Liang Lin, violin; Helsinki Philharmonic; Muhai Tang, conductor; Ondine 864

Copland counts to 12 Sep 13, 2026

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On today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, Inscape, was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Copland said the work’s title, Inscape,was borrowed from 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its compositional technique was borrowed from the serial or 12-tone models of Arnold Schoenberg and the some of the late works of one of his favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky. Bernstein was no great fan of 12-tone music, but he exclaimed following the premiere, “Aaron, it’s amazing how, even when you compose in a completely foreign idiom, the music still comes out sounding like you!”

Beyond the technical challenge involved, Inscapes, said Copland, reflected what he called “the tenseness of the times in which we live.”

His experiments with 12-tone pieces like Inscape didn’t impress the avant-garde composers of the day, and only baffled audiences who expected him to produce more works in the style of his popular ballet scores of the 1930s and 40s.

By 1970, he stopped composing altogether, and claimed not to miss it very much. “I must have expressed myself sufficiently,” he said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Inscape; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 47236

A serenata by Vivaldi Sep 12, 2026

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For decades many of the 20th century’s greatest composers routinely visited Venice’s famous canals and churches during a biennial music festival that showcased brand-new works by the likes of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten and others.

French composer Darius Milhaud describes sharing space with several of his composer-colleagues in a cramped Festival “green room.” “It was a normal sight to see Stravinsky’s rain-coat and Constant Lambert’s tweed overcoat hanging near my two walking sticks,” he wrote. “Meanwhile, Italian composer Hildebrando Pizetti would be putting up a mirror, opening a silver toilet-case, and arranging flowers, his wife’s photograph and a sheaf of telegrams.”

On today’s date in 1937, he conducted the first performance of his Suite Provencale at the Venice Festival. This jaunty score proved to be one of his most popular orchestral works. In 1954, it was Leonard Bernstein’s turn. In Venice on today’s date that year, he conducted the premiere performance of his Serenade for violin and orchestra, with Isaac Stern the featured soloist.

Despite its admirable track record for picking winners, the Venice Festival shut down operations in 1973, although its impact lives on in the number of modern masterworks it helped launch in its day.

Music Played in Today's Program

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Suite Provençale; Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, conductor; Chandos 7031

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990): Serenade (after Plato’s Symposium); Zino Francescatti, violin; NY Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 60559

Dvorak's 'Luzany' Mass Sep 11, 2026

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In 1886, a Czech patron of the arts, Josef Hlavka, had a chapel built at his summer residence at Lužany in Bohemia and asked his composer friend Antonín Dvořák to write a mass to dedicate it.

As a devout Catholic, Dvořák was happy to oblige. Since the chapel was quite small, he wrote his Mass in D Major for just a quartet of soloists, a small choir, and organ, and led the premiere performance there on today’s date in 1887, with his wife Anna singing one of the solo roles.

He told Hlavka he was grateful for the chance to write so intimate a piece. “Until now, I had only written sacred works of larger proportions with considerable vocal and instrumental means at my disposal,” he wrote.

Ironically, Dvořák’s intimate Lužany Mass became popular as just such a large-scale work. At the request of his publisher, he orchestrated his Mass, and in that form it received its international premiere in 1893 at the immense Crystal Palace in London, performed by a huge chorus and a large symphony orchestra.

The published orchestrated version became extremely popular during his lifetime, but his small-scale original version was not even published until 1963.

Music Played in Today's Program

Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904): Mass in D; Christ Church Cathedral Choir; Nicholas Cleobury; Simon Preston, conductor; London/Decca 448 089-2

Cowell's Hymn and Fuguing Tunes Sep 10, 2026

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American composer Henry Cowell lived from 1897 to 1965 and wrote thousands of musical works in a wide variety of styles. As a young boy, he lived near San Francisco’s Chinatown, so Asian influences are as likely to crop up in his music as European models. And among his aggressively experimental works are piano pieces that employ what he called “tone clusters” — chords played with a fist or forearm. Those pieces piqued the interest of European composers like Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáček, but in addition to avant-garde scores, he wrote dozens of conventionally tonal works, often hauntingly beautiful.

In 1941, he discovered Southern Harmony, a collection of evocative 19th century American hymns. These reminded him of even earlier works by 18th century American composer William Billings, who liked to write what he called “fuguing tunes.” Combining these two influences, he came up with his own series of “Hymns and Fuguing Tunes” for various combinations of instruments.

Cowell’s Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10 for oboe and strings, for example, was premiered on today’s date in 1955, in Santa Barbara, California, by oboist Bert Gassman and the Pacific Coast Music Festival orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Music Played in Today's Program

Henry Cowell (1897-1965): Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10; Humbert Lucarelli, oboe; Manhattan Chamber Orchestra; Richard Auldon Clark, conductor; Koch 7282

Finzi's Clarinet Concerto Sep 09, 2026

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On today’s date in 1949, British composer Gerald Finzi conducted the premiere performance of his Clarinet Concerto at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford.

During his lifetime, Finzi never achieved the fame of some other 20th-century British composers. British tenor Mark Padmore wrote an article, “The Quiet Man of British Music,” which included these lines:

“I want to make a case for taking the time to get to know a composer … whose plumage is discreet and whose song is quiet and subtle. Finzi might be termed one of classical music's wrens. Despite his exotic-sounding surname and mixed Italian, Sephardic and Ashkenazi heritage, Finzi was in many ways an archetypal English gentleman ... One of his passions was the saving of old English varieties of apples … [His] music was written slowly and often it would take many years for a piece to reach its final form.”

Finzi died in 1956, at 55, from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was concerned his music would be forgotten after his death and added this note to his catalogue of works: “The affection which an individual may retain after his departure is perhaps the only thing which guarantees an ultimate life to his work.”