Hoover's "Quintet da Pacem"

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1989, this chamber work by the American composer Katherine Hoover received its premiere at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. Hoover’s Piano Quintet, entitled “Quintet Da Pacem,” was a commission from the New Jersey Chamber Music Society. Hoover explained the work’s Latin title, “Da Pacem” or “Give Us Peace,” as follows:

“Sometime in the 1960s, I came across a simple, lovely canon by a 17th century composer named Christoph Demantius: ‘Da pacem, Domine, in diebus nostris,’ or ‘Give us peace, Lord, in our time.’ Both the music and the sentiment continued to haunt me, for I would occasionally use the piece in sight-singing classes I taught back then, where it would be sung by vigorous young men the same age as thousands who had been drafted to suffer and die in Vietnam and elsewhere. At some point I began to think about structuring a large work around this canon, one whose parts would all be related in various ways. This is the piece that developed from that idea.”

Toward the end of her Quintet, Hoover sets the canon melody in the styles of successive periods of music, thereby reflecting mankind’s long search for peace.

Katherine Hoover was born in Elkins, West Virginia, in 1937, and after studies at Eastman and the Manhattan School of Music, pursued a career as a freelance flutist, composer, and conductor. She’s written a number of solo and chamber works for her own instrument, the flute, as well as larger-scale orchestral pieces.

Music Played in Today's Program

Katherine Hoover (1937-2018) Quintet "Da Pacem" Montclair String Quartet; Leslie Petteys, piano Koch 7147

On This Day

Births

• 1804 - Russian composer Mikail Glinka ((Gregorian date: June 1);

• 1943 - American composer Tison Street, in Boston;

Deaths

• 1896 - German pianist and composer, Clara Wieck Schumann, age 76, in Frankfurt;

• 1995 - American composer Ulysses Kay, in Englewood, N.J.;

Premieres

• 1914 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 1, in Pavlovsk (Julian date: June 2);

• 1937 - John J. Becker: Symphony No. 3 ("Symphonia Brevis"), at the Saint Paul Auditorium by the Twin Cities Civic (Federal Music Project, Minnesota) Orchestra, with the composer conducting;

• 1948 - Milhaud: Symphony No.4, in Paris, composer conducting;

• 1950 - Dallapiccola: opera "Il prigionero" (The Prisoner)(first staged production), in Florence at the Teatro Comunale; The opera has been premiered in a concert performance in Turin on December 1, 1949;

• 1973 - Menotti: Suite for Two Cellos and Piano, in New York, with cellists Gregor Piatigorsky and Leslie Parnas, and pianist Charles Wadsworth;

• 1974 - Panufnik: "Sinfonia Concertante," in London;

• 1974 - Sondheim: incidental music for "The Frogs" (after Aristophanes), at the Yale swimming pool;

• 1977 - Hovhaness: "Rubaiyat" for narrator, accordion, and orchestra, in New York City;

• 1979 - Tobias Picker: "Romance" for violin and piano, at York College, by Linda Quan (violin) and Aleck Karis (piano);

• 1989 - Katherine Hoover: "Quintet Da Pacem," for piano quintet, at Alice Tully Hall in New York, by members of the New Jersey Chamber Music Society;

Others

• 1846 - American premiere of Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 ("Choral") by New York Philharmonic Society at New York's Castle Garden, George Loder, Jr. conducting; It appears that the Society tried unsuccessfully to invite Mendelssohn to attend this festival performance, which they organized to raise funds for "the erection of a suitable edifice for musical purposes" in Manhattan; The next documented performance of Beethoven's Ninth outside of New York was given in Boston on February 5, 1853 by the combined forces of the Handel and Haydn Society plus the Germania Society; Other 19 th century regional premieres of Beethoven Ninth occurred in New Haven (Dec. 10, 1870), Columbus (Dec. 13, 1870), Chicago (Dec. 17, 1870), Philadelphia (April 27, 1874), Milwaukee (Oct. 22, 1878), Baltimore (May 3, 1884) and Pittsburgh (May 25, 1889);

• 1943 - The U.S. Marine Band performs a special wartime concert on the White House South Lawn for President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill; Despite a steady rain, Roosevelt and Churchill stayed throughout and sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" with the band at the conclusion.