Music for the Queen Mum

Synopsis

When grandma turns 90, you can bet by her age she’s gotten just about everything imaginable as a birthday gift. That was the quandary facing the Prince of Wales in 1990, when his granny, Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England—or “The Queen Mum” as just about everybody called her—was about to celebrate her 90th.

Prince Charles writes: “The idea for a concert came to me when I was trying to think of an original birthday present for my grandmother. It suddenly struck me that here was a wonderful reason for commissioning some new music to celebrate a very special occasion.”

Prince Charles liked the music that the Scottish composer Patrick Doyle had written for Kenneth Branagh’s film of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” so Doyle was asked to write a song cycle. The Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich heard about the planned birthday concert, and for his part commissioned and offered to play a “Romanza” for cello and small orchestra by the British composer David Matthews. The Swiss conductor and new music impresario Paul Sacher commissioned a third new work, a suite for solo violin and orchestra from the British composer Patrick Gowers.

All three pieces were played at a gala concert by the English Chamber Orchestra in the Ballroom of Buckingham Palace on today’s date in 1990, two days before the Queen Mum’s 90th birthday.

Music Played in Today's Program

Patrick Doyle (b. 1953) The Thistle and the Rose Marie McLaughlin, soprano

Patrick Gowers (b. 1936) Suite for Violin Jose Luis Garcia, violin

David Matthews (b. 1943) Romanza Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; English Chamber Orchestra; Raymond Leppard, cond all three pieces on EMI 54164

On This Day

Births

• 1891 - English composer Sir Arthur Bliss, in London;

• 1905 - German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann, in Munich;

• 1936 - British composer Anthony Payne, in London;

Deaths

• 1827 - English-born early American composer James Hewitt, age 57, in Boston;

• 1945 - Italian opera composer Pietro Mascagni, age 81, in Rome;

• 1945 - Austrian composer Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek, age 85, in Berlin;

• 1978 - Mexican composer and conductor Carlos Chavez, age 79, in Mexico City;

Premieres

• 1774 - Gluck: opera, "Orphee" (2nd version) in Paris at the Academie Royale; This is the French version of his Italian opera "Orfeo ed Euridice," which had premiered in Vienna in 1762;

• 1964 - Persichetti: Piano Concerto, at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire;

• 1990 - David Matthews: Romanza for cello and small orchestra (Mstislav Rostropovich, soloist); Patrick Gowers: Suite for solo violin and chamber orchestra (José-Luis Garcia soloist) and Patrick Doyle "The Thistle and the Rose" (soprano Maria McLaughlin soloist), at the ballroom of Buckingham Palace in London, by the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Raymond Leppard; All three works were specially written for a concert celebrating the 90th birthday of HM Queen Elisabeth (aka the Queen Mother);

• 1993 - John Harbison: "Three City Blocks" for symphonic band, in Fort Smith, Ark., by the U.S. Air Force Band, Lt. Col. Alan Bonner conducting;

Others

• 1921 - Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, age 48, dies in Naples;

• 1923 - First festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music in Salzburg, Austria, offering chamber music by Schönberg, Berg and Bartók; Even though the Berg String Quartet, Op. 3 had premiered it Vienna on April 24, 1911, it was the 1923 Salzburg performance by the Havemann Quartet that established Berg's worldwide reputation in musical circles.