Some fantastic Martinu

Synopsis

Sometimes it’s all very personal: a piece of music is written for a particular orchestra or even a particular conductor.

That certainly was the case with this work, the Sixth Symphony of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu, a work he gave the French title, “Fantasies symphoniques.”

The work was commissioned as part of the 75th anniversary season of the Boston Symphony, an orchestra for which Martinu must have had warm feelings. The long-time conductor of the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky, had championed Martinu’s music in America, and even found Martinu a job teaching composition at the Berkshire Music Center in Massachusetts.

In the early 1940s, Martinu had fled Paris as the German troops approached. He had already fled German-occupied Czechoslovakia, where his music had been banned, and was struggling to establish himself in America. Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony commissioned and premiered his First and Third in 1942 and 1945.

Martinu’s Sixth Symphony was dedicated to Koussevitzky’s successor in Boston, the French conductor Charles Munch. Munch was an old friend of Martinu’s from his days in Paris. Like Koussevitzky, Munch was a Martinu enthusiast, and was particularly famous for his dazzling interpretations of the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz. Martinu’s new symphony was intended to be something like a “new” version of Berlioz’s famous Symphonie fantastique, tailor-made for the French conductor.

Music Played in Today's Program

Bohuslav Martinu (1890 – 1959) Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques) Czech Philharmonic;Vaclav Neumann, cond. Supraphon 111895

On This Day

Births

• 1899 - French composer and pianist Francis Poulenc, in Paris;

• 1917 - American composer Ulysses Kay, in Tucson, Ariz.;

Deaths

• 1964 - American composer Colin McPhee, age 62, in Los Angeles;

Premieres

• 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 124 ("Meinen Hesum lass ich nicht") performed on the 1st Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25);

• 1857 - Liszt: Piano Concerto No. 2 in A, in Weimar, with the composer conducting and his pupil, Hans von Bronsart, the soloist;

• 1895 - Brahms: Two Sonatas for clarinet and piano (Op. 120, no. 1 in f & No. 2 in Eb), in Vienna at a private performance for members of the Tonkünstler Society, with clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld and the composer at the piano; The first public performances of these pieces took place at the Rosé Quartet's chamber concert series on Jan. 8 (Sonata No. 2) and Jan. 11 (Sonata No. 1); See also Jan. 8 & 11 below for more information on early performances of these two sonatas;

• 1897 - Loeffler: “The Death of Tintagiles” for orchestra, by the Boston Symphony, Emil Paur conducting;

• 1898 - Glazunov: ballet "Raymonda" (Gregorian date: Jan. 19);

• 1898 - Rimsky-Korsakov: "Sadko," in Moscow at the Solodovnikov Theater, Esposito conducting (Julian date: Dec. 26, 1897;

• 1933 - Gruenberg: opera "Emperor Jones" (after the play by Eugene O'Neill), at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City;

• 1942 - Copland: "Statements" for Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall by New York Philharmonic conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos;

• 1952 - Gail Kubik: "Symphonie-Concertante" in New York City; This work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1952;

• 1955 - Martinu: Symphony No. 6 ("Fantaisies symphoniques"), by the Boston Symphony, with Charles Munch conducting;

• 2000 - Danielpour: "The Night Rainbow," in Santa Anna, Calif., by the Pacific Symphony, Carl St. Clair conducting;

Others

• 1955 - Marian Anderson makes her Metropolitan Opera debut as Ulrica in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Mascera" (A Masked Ball); She is the first African-American singer to perform as an opera soloist on the Met stage; Subsequent distinguished African-American singers who performed as members of the Met company included Robert McFerrin, Sr. (Bobby McFerrin Jr.’s father), Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Kahtleen Battle and Jessye Norman.