Chavez goes native

Synopsis

The late composer, conductor, and writer on all matters musical, Nicolas Slonimsky, has become the revered patron saint of all who dabble in what he once termed “the muddy field of musical lexicography.” Slonimsky had an unusual way with words, and loved to compress as much as possible in one, long, serpentine sentence.

By way of an example, we can do no better than to quote verbatim this one-sentence entry, for January 23, 1936, published in Slonimsky’s massive chronology entitled “Music Since 1900.”

“Carlos Chavez conducts the Columbia Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in New York in the first performance of his Sinfonia India, his second symphony, employing a large array of primitive Mexican percussion instruments (Yaqui drums, water gourd, a string of desiccated butterfly cocoons, a chain of deer hooves, two teponaxtles, a huehuetl, claves, maracas, guïro, etc, interchangeable, if necessary, with more common drums and rattles), in one continuous movement, making use of three authentic pentatonic Mexican tunes in a treatment abounding in changing meters, but with the eighth-note as the least common denominator maintaining a uniform beat, with a coda of 125 bars of relentless reiteration of a tune from the island of Tiburon in the gulf of Baja California over the firm pedal-point on tonic F, and concluding on a pan-diatonic chord.”

Whew!

Music Played in Today's Program

Carlos Chavez (1899 – 1978) Sinfonia India (Symphony No. 2) Simon Bolivar Symphony of Venezuela; Eduardo Mata, cond. Dorian 90179

On This Day

Births

• 1752 - Italian composer Muzio Clementi, in Rome;

• 1878 - English composer Rutland Boughton, in Aylesbury;

Deaths

• 1837 - Irish composer John Field, age 54, in Moscow (Julian date: Jan.11);

• 1908 - American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell, age 47, in New York;

• 1981 - American composer Samuel Barber, age 70, in New York;

Premieres

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 73 ("Herr, wie du willst, so schicks mit mir") performed on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24);

• 1729 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 156 ("Ich steh mit einem Fuss im Grabe") probably performed in Leipzig on the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's fourth annual Sacred Cantata cycle (to texts by Christian Friedrich Henrici, a.k.a. "Picander") during 1728/29;

• 1895 - MacDowell: Suite No. 2 (":Indian"), at the old Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, by the Boston Symphony, with Emil Paur conducting; On the same program, MacDowell appeared as the soloist in his own Piano Concerto No. 1;

• 1933 - Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 2, in Frankfurt, with Hans Robaud conducting and the composer as soloist;

• 1936 - Chavez: "Sinfonia India," on a radio broadcast by the Columbia Symphony, conducted by the composer;

• 1948 - Diamond: Symphony No. 4, by the Boston Symphony, Leonard Bernstein conducting;

• 1963 - Peter Mennin: Symphony No. 7, by the Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell conducting;

• 1973 - Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 3, in New York City, by the Juilliard String Quartet; This work won the Pulitzer Prize for music in that year (This was Carter's second Pulitzer Prize);

• 1999 - Thea Musgrave: "Three Women," in San Francisco, by the Women's Philharmonic, A. Hsu conducting;

Others

• 1894 - Czech composer Antonin Dvorák presents a concert of African-American choral music at Madison Square Concert Hall in New York, using an all-black choir, comprised chiefly of members of the St. Philip's Colored Choir; On the program was the premiere performance of Dvorák's own arrangement of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which featured vocal soloists Sissierette Jones and Harry T. Burleigh;

• 1943 - Duke Ellington and his orchestra present their first concert at Carngie Hall in New York, presenting the "official" premiere of Ellington's "Black, Brown and Beige" Suite (This work had received its world premiere at a trial performance the preceding day at Rye High School in Rye, New York).