Hollywood Anniversaries

Synopsis

Today’s date marks two events in American musical history—one sad, one happy.

It was on today’s date in 1937 that George Gershwin died at 10:35 in the morning in a Hollywood hospital after an operation for a brain tumor. He was only 38 years old. Gershwin was the idol of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley, and also admired by the “serious” composers of his day, such as Maurice Ravel and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Even Arnold Schoenberg, the fearsome leader of the 12-tone school—and Gershwin’s regular tennis partner in Los Angeles—said, in tribute, “there is no doubt that he was a great composer.”

A Gershwin memorial concert was held in the Hollywood Bowl later that year, featuring notables from both classical and popular music, including Otto Klemperer, Fred Astaire, and Lily Pons.

The happier anniversary we note is the founding of the Hollywood Bowl itself, on today’s date in 1922. This open-air auditorium was constructed in a natural canyon in the Los Angeles area, and hosted its first public concert with the fearsomely-bearded German conductor Alfred Hertz on the podium. An audience of 5,000 cheered music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Rossini. Works by those composers still show up on Hollywood Bowl programs today, often alongside selections from now-classic Hollywood film scores, often conducted by their composers—bearded or otherwise.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Gershwin (1898-1937) An American in Paris Hollywood Bowl Orchestra; John Mauceri, cond. Philips 438 663

Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) 1812 Overture Berlin Philharmonic; Herbert von Karajan, cond. EMI Classics 65690

On This Day

Births

• 1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in Campinas

Deaths

• 1937 - American composer George Gershwin, age 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumor

Premieres

• 1882 - MacDowell: "Modern Suite" No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist

• 1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, "George White's Scandals of 1921," at the Liberty Theater in New York City

• 1996 - James MacMillan: "The World's Ransoming" (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting

• 2003 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Naxos Quartet" No. 2, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham (UK), as part of the Cheltenham International Festival by the Maggini Quartet;

Others

• 1798 - In the nation's capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band (The original "32 drummers and fifers" assisted in recruiting and entertained residents)

• 1885 - First concert of the Boston "Promenade" Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston "Pops") at the old Music Hall in Boston; Adolf Neuendorff conducts;

• 1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium

• 1940 - Leonard Bernstein's first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading a performance of Wagner's Act I Prelude to "Die Meistersinger" with the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert

• 1998 - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, America's oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary