Beach's Boston "Celtic"

Synopsis

In 1893, when Antonín Dvořák suggested that American composers look to Native American tribal songs and African-American spirituals as themes for original American concert music, not everyone necessarily agreed, including some prominent American composers and critics of the day.

Remember, this was the age of "progress," and, some argued, how could the primitive and "backward" folk cultures Dvořák recommended compete with the sophisticated and "advanced" concert music of Europe? As you might suspect, what we now call "racism" had a lot to do with it, too.

For her part, the Bostonian composer Amy Beach agreed with Dvořák that folk themes could and should be used as the basis of new American concert music, but disagreed that Indian and Negro melodies were the only possibilities. "We of the North," she wrote to the Boston Herald, "should be more likely to be influenced by old English, Scotch, or Irish songs, inherited with our literature from our ancestors."

And so, on today's date in 1896, Amy Beach put her ideas into practice, when her "Gaelic" Symphony had its first public performance by the Boston Symphony. As themes for her symphony, Beach used actual folk tunes found in an old collection of Irish melodies. "Their simple, rugged, and unpretentious beauty led me to try to develop their ideas in symphonic form."

Music Played in Today's Program

Amy Beach (1867 – 1944) Gaelic Symphony Detroit Symphony; Neeme Järvi, cond. Chandos 8958

On This Day

Births

• 1894 - English composer Peter Warlock (real name, Philip Heseltine), in London;

Deaths

• 1953 - Hungarian operetta composer Emmerich Kálmán, age 71, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1733 - Handel: opera "Semiramide" in London at the King's Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: Nov. 10);

• 1876 - Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in Bb (first public performance), in Berlin, by the Joachim Quartet; This work had been privately premiered at the home of Clara Schumann by the Joachim Quartet on May 23, 1876, and subsequently performed for a small circle of friends at the Joachim home on June 4 that year;

• 1881 - Serenade for Strings, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: Oct. 18);

• 1882 - Tchaikovsky: Trio, Op. 50 (dedicated to the memory of Nicolas Rubinstein), in Moscow at a Russian Musical Society concert by Ivan Hřimaly (violin), Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (cello) and Sergei Taneyev (piano) (Julian date: Oct. 18); This was the public premiere of the Tchaikovsky Trio, but a private performance featuring the same artists had occurred on Feb. 18 (Gregorian date: Mar. 2) that same year;

• 1896 - Amy Beach: "Gaelic" Symphony, at the Music Hall in Boston by the Boston Symphony, Emil Paur conducting; This was an afternoon "open rehearsal" performance - the "official" premiere took place the following evening;

• 1929 - Wallingford Rieger: "Study in Sonority," by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1944 - Copland: ballet "Appalachian Spring," by a 13-piece chamber orchestra, at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., by the Martha Graham Ballet;

• 1947 - Elie Siegemeister: Symphony No. 1, by the New York Philharmonic, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1947 - Kurt Weill: musical, "Lost in the Stars," in New York City;

• 1957 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 ("The Year 1905"), in Moscow, by the USSR State Symphony, Natan Rakhlin;

• 1979 - Ned Rorem: "Nantucket Songs" (to texts by Roethke, Wm. Carlos Williams, Edmund Waller and others) at Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, with soprano Phylllis Bryn-Julson and the composer at the piano;

• 1998 - Anthony Davis: "Tales (Tails) of a Signifying Monkey," by the Pittsburgh Symphony, David Zinman conducting;

Others

• 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in A, Op. 6, no. 11 (Gregorian date: Nov. 10);

• 1822 - Schubert begins work on his Symphony No. 8 in B minor, later known as the "Unfinished." Not played until 37 years later;

• 1935 - First concert at The Composers' Forum-Laboratory in New York City, sponsored by the Federal Music Project and featuring works of Roy Harris.