The murderous Mr. Copland

Synopsis

It has to rank among the top ten “notorious modern composer anecdotes” and it happened on today’s date in 1925.

The occasion was a concert by the New York Symphony at Aeolian Hall. On the program was the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra by the then still-young American composer Aaron Copland. The eminent (and elderly) German-born American composer and conductor Walter Damrosch had just finished conducting the new piece, and, turning to face the auditorium proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will agree that if a gifted young man can write a symphony like this at twenty-three, within five years he will be ready to commit murder.”

That got a laugh, naturally, but backstage Damrosch apologized to Copland for the glib remark. But Copland had taken no offense.

“It was a joke, of course,” said Copland, “and I laughed along with the rest of the audience. It was just Damrosch’s way of smoothing the ruffled feathers of his conservative Sunday afternoon ladies faced with modern American music.”

Whatever Damrosch’s intention might have been, his comment made headlines and alerted opinion-makers to the originality of the young composer who was just then breaking on to the scene. One literal-minded newspaper went so far as to run its review of the Copland premiere under the headline, “Young Composer to Commit Murder!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Aaron Copland (1900 –1990) Symphony for Orchestra and Organ Wayne Marshall, organ; Dallas Symphony; Andrew Litton, cond. Delos 3221

On This Day

Births

• 1856 - Norwegian composer Christian Sinding, in Kongsberg;

• 1875 - Russian composer Reinhold Glière, in Kiev, Ukraine (Julian date: Dec. 30, 1874);

• 1902 - French composer and organist Maurice Duruflé, in Louviers;

• 1944 - German composer York Höller, in Leverkusen;

Deaths

• 1801 - Italian composer Domenico Cimarosa, age 51, in Venice;

• 1901 - Russian composer Vassili Sergeievitch Kalinnikov, age 34, in Yalta (Julian date: Dec. 29, 1900);

• 1954 - Austrian composer Oscar Straus, age 83, in Bad Ischl;

Premieres

• 1754 - Rameau: opera "Castor and Pollux" (2nd version), in Paris at the Palais Royal Opéra;

• 1895 - Brahms: Clarinet Sonata, Op. 120, no. 1 (first public performance), in Vienna, by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, with the composer at the piano, as part of the Rosé Quartet's chamber music series; The first performance ever of this work occurred on September 19, 1894, at a private performance in the home of the sister of the Duke of Meiningen at Berchtesgaden, with the same performers; Brahms and Mühlfeld also gave private performances of both sonatas in Frankfurt (for Clara Schumann and others) on November 10-13, 1894; at Castle Altenstein (for the Duke of Meiningen) on Nov. 14, 1894; and on Jan. 7, 1895 (for members of the Vienna Tonkünstler Society);

• 1906 - Rachmaninoff: two one-act operas "The Miserly Knight" and "Francesca da Rimini" in Moscow (Gregorian date: Jan. 24);

• 1925 - Copland: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, at Aeolian Hall in New York City by New York Symphony conducted by Walter Damrosch, with Nadia Boulanger the soloist;

• 1940 - Prokofiev: ballet, "Romeo and Juliet," in Leningrad;

• 1968 - Shchedrin: "Chimes" by the New York Philharmonic;

• 1976 - Broadway premiere of Sondheim: musical "Pacific Overtures";

• 1992 - John Harbison: song "The Flute of Interior Time" (text by Kabir, translated by Robert Bly), at the Shauspielhaus in Berlin, by baritone William Parker and pianist Allan Marks; This song became part of "The AIDS-Quilt Songbook" compiled by the late William Parker;

• 1997 - Henze: opera "Venus and Adonis," in Munich at the Bavarian State Opera;

• 2001 - American premiere of John Adams: oratorio "El Niño" at Davies Hall, San Francisco with Kent Nagano conducting the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Piedmont Children's Choir and the same soloists as the Paris world premiere performance at. Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris on December 15, 2000.

Others

• 1946 - German composer Paul Hindemith becomes a U.S. citizen.