On today's date in 1958, Leonard Bernstein asked, "What does Music mean?" He posed the question to an audience of kids assembled at Carnegie Hall for the first of his "Young People's Concerts" -- but since the concert was televised, it was a question he posed as well to a nationwide audience of all ages. That 1958 concert opened with Rossini's "William Tell" Overture – music that "meant" the Lone Ranger to TV audiences back then, or as Bernstein put it: "Cowboys, bandits, horses, the Wild West." But, Bernstein argued: "Music is never about anything. Music just is. Music is …
Tags: education, music, society & culture
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Today’s date in 1803 marks the passing of a late Baroque composer who was born in Italy but spent most of his adult life in the Netherlands, where his works were published and distributed throughou...
Today marks the anniversary of the creation of a famous classical music nickname, “Les Six”—French for “The Six.” That’s what Parisian music critic Henri Collet dubbed six composers on this day in ...
In the fall of 1784, Mozart and his wife moved into an elegant apartment near St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. The house belonged to the Camesina brothers, whose father made ornamental rococo pla...
On today’s date in 1900, “Tosca,” a new opera by Giacomo Puccini had its premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Rome was, in fact, the opera’s setting and those in the audience would have instant...
Today’s date in 1904 marks the birthday of Richard Addinsell, a versatile British musician who became one of the most famous film score composers of his generation. Addinsell was born in London, ...
Composers and publishers don’t always see eye to eye. Simrock, the German publisher of Dvorak’s music, irritated the patriotic Czech composer by issuing his scores with his first name printed in i...
The German composer Johannes Brahms would probably have nodded in approval if he could have heard Orson Welles intone “We will sell no wine before its time” in those old TV ads for Paul Masson. Bra...
On today’s date in 1998, the Lark Quartet gave the first performance of the String Quartet No. 2 by the American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Like much of Kernis’s music, the new Quartet drew upon an...
In January of 1939, the famous jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman was playing each night at New York’s Paramount Theater. On today’s date that year he also appeared on the stage of Carnegie Hall. The...
If the late 18th century is the “Classical Age,” and the 19th “The Romantic,” then perhaps we should dub our time “The Eclectic Age” of music. These days, composers can—and do—pick and choose from ...
In 1935 Aaron Copland finished a new orchestral work that was to be premiered by the Minneapolis Symphony and its young conductor Eugene Ormandy. The work was entitled “Statements for Orchestra,” ...
The American composer Ned Rorem liked to classify music as being either French or German – by “French” Rorem meant music that is sensuous, economical, and unabashedly superficial; by “German” Rorem...
On today’s date in 1932, Maurice Ravel’s Concerto for Piano Left Hand received its public premiere in Vienna. It was one of several concertos for piano left hand commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein...
On today’s date in 1961, the New York City Ballet presented a new work scored by a 35-year old composer named Gunther Schuller, who was conducting the pit orchestra. On stage, in the middle of the ...
In Austrian culture there is a theatrical tradition that pokes fun at anything somber and serious. Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” taps into this in the person of Papageno, and in the 19th century...
In 1885, a 20-year old violinist named Franz Kneisel came to America to become concertmaster of the Boston Symphony. That same year he formed the Kneisel Quartet, the first professional string quar...
OK – raise your hand if you have ever stayed up ‘till midnight to attend the premiere showing of a new film . . . Extra points if you attended in costume as a Hogwarts student! Well, opera fans ar...
On New Year's Eve, 1948, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the first performance of the Symphony No. 5 by the American composer George Antheil. Now, in his youth, Antheil was somet...
On this date in 1905, the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár conducted the first performance of his new operetta, "The Merry Widow." Lehar was sure it would be a success, but others did not shar...