"Please don't have Carmen die at the end, I pray you . . ."

Synopsis

Music Played in Today's Program

Georges Bizet (1838-1875) Carmen Suite Orchestre de la Bastille; Myung-Whun Chung, cond. DG 431 778

On This Day

Births

• 1891 - Spanish composer Federico Moreno Torroba, in Madrid;

Deaths

• 1768 - Italian composer Nicola Porpora, age 81, in Naples;

• 1824 - Italian composer and violin virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti, age 68, in London;

• 1932 - British-born German composer and pianist Eugène d'Albert, age 67, in Riga;

Premieres

• 1793 - Haydn: Symphony No. 101 ("The Clock"), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London;

• 1842 - Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 ("Scottish"), by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with the composer conducting;

• 1853 - revised version of R. Schumann: Symphony No. 4, with the Düsseldorf Municipal Orchestra, conducted by the composer; An earlier version of this symphony premiered in Leipzig in 1841 as Schumann's Symphony "No. 2," but the composer withdrew the score and composed and premiered a new Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3 before revising and reintroducing this symphony as "No. 4";

• 1870 - Brahms: "Alto Rhapsody," by the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, in Jena, Germany;

• 1875 - Bizet: opera "Carmen," in Paris at the Opéra-Comique;

• 1893 - George Templeton Strong, Jr.: Symphony No. 2 ("Sintram"), at a public afternoon rehearsal by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, with Anton Seidl conducting; The "official" premiere concert took place the following evening;

• 1899 - R. Strauss: tone-poem "Ein Heldenleben" (A Hero's Life), in Frankfurt, with Strauss conducting;

• 1918 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17, in Budapest, by the Waldbauer Quartet;

• 1944 - Barber: Symphony No, 2, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting;

• 1951 - Otto Luening: "Kentucky Concerto" by the Louisville Orchestra, with the composer conducting;

• 1959 - Cowell: Symphony No. 13 ("Madras") in Madras, India;

• 1963 - Menotti: television opera "Labyrinth," broadcast over the NBC network;

Others

• 1886 - American premiere (in a concert version) of Wagner's "Parsifal" at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, by the New York Symphony and Oratorio Society conducted by the 24-year old Walter Damrosch; The soloists included soprano Marianne Brandt, who had alternated the role of Kundry with soprano Amalie Materna in the premiere staged performances of the opera in Bayreuth in July of 1882; The first fully staged presentation of "Parsifal" in the U.S. did not occur at the Met until Dec. 24, 1903;

• 1922 - U.S. premiere of concert version of Stravinsky's ballet score, "The Rite of Spring," in Philadelphia, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.