Grainger and Shostakovich go public

Synopsis

On today's date in 1928, Percy Grainger — Australian-born American composer, pianist and folk song collector — was married to Ella Viola Ström, a Swedish poet and painter. It was a very public ceremony that took place in the Hollywood Bowl amphitheater, outside Los Angeles.

Illuminated by a lighted cross on a nearby mountain, and with a Swedish Lutheran minister presiding, some 20,000 people were in the audience as Grainger capped the ceremony by conducting his new orchestral composition, a work dedicated to his wife, titled "To a Nordic Princess."

Grainger's wedding music may have involved 20,000, but in sheer numbers it was surpassed by a quite different kind of public performance that took place on this day in 1942, in the blockaded city of Leningrad. As surrounding Nazi troops were bombarded into silence, Leningrad city authorities put together a ragtag orchestra, many of its members called back from the front, in order to inspire the suffering populace by playing for them the recently completed "Leningrad Symphony," the seventh by Dimitri Shostakovich.

The score had to be flown in under cover of darkness and copied out by hand by a team of copyists working day and night. On the night of the concert, the hall was packed, and the performance, along with the thundering applause that followed it, was broadcast throughout Leningrad on loudspeakers, and even to the dispirited German troops outside the city.

Music Played in Today's Program

Percy Grainger (1882-1961) To A Nordic Princess Danish National Radio Orchestra; Richard Hickox, cond. Chandos 9721

Dmitri Shostakovich(1906-1975) Symphony No. 7 (Leningrad) London Philharmonic; Bernard Haitink, cond. London 417 392

On This Day

Births

• 1781 - Austrian composer, violinist, and conductor Michael Umlauff, in Vienna; He conducted the orchestra, chorus, and soloists assembled for the premiere performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Vienna's Kärtnertor Theater on May 7, 1824; After the totally deaf Beethoven set the initial tempos for each movement, the performers were instructed to ignore Beethoven if he continued to beat time, and to follow Umlauf;

• 1874 - Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor and music critic Reynaldo Hahn, in Caracas;

• 1875 - English light music composer Albert William Ketèlbey, in Aston;

Deaths

• 1919 - Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo, age 62, in Montecatini;

• 1975 - Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich, age 68, in Moscow;

• 1988 - Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi, age 83, in Rome;

Premieres

• 1862 - Berlioz: opera "Beatrice and Benedick," in Baden-Baden at the Neues Theater, with the composer conducting; The libretto (by Berlioz himself) is based on Shakespeare's comedy "Much Ado About Nothing";

• 1949 - Orff: opera "Antigone," in Salzburg at the Felsenreitschile;

• 1972 - London premiere of Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical "Jesus Christ Superstar";

• 1978 - Dave Brubeck: oratorio “Beloved Son,” at the American Lutheran Women’s Convention in Minneapolis, Minn., with Richard Sieber conducting;

• 1979 - Hanson: ballet "Nymph and Satyr" in Chautauqua, Tennessee;

• 1988 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Symphony No. 5, during a BBC Proms Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall, by the Philharmonia Orchestra, with the composer conducting;

Others

• 1703 - J.S. Bach appointed organist at Neuekirche, Arnstadt (see also: August 4 and 14)

• 1928 - Australian-born American composer Percy Grainger marries Swedish poet and painter Ella Viola Strom at the Hollywood Bowl in front of an audience of 22,000 concert-goers; Grainger conducted the LA Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of his "To a Nordic Princess," dedicated to his bride.