Paulus's "Courtship Songs"

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1981, at a house concert in St. Paul, Minnesota, a chamber work by the American composer Stephen Paulus received its premiere. The piece was entitled “Courtship Songs,” and was commissioned to celebrate the 15th wedding anniversary of a St. Paul couple, Jack and Linda Hoeschler. The piece was scored for the four instruments the Hoeschler family played: flute, oboe, cello and piano. The commissioning bug apparently caught on, and anniversary commissions became a family tradition.

Eventually the Hoeschlers and some of their friends in the Twin Cities started up a Commissioning Club, modeled along the lines of an investment club. The idea was to pool their resources, and commission new works by American composers whose works they admired, including Paulus, Paul Schoenfield, Steve Heitzeg, and Augusta Read Thomas. Performing groups who have premiered Commissioning Club projects have included New York’s Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Washington D.C.’s 20th Century Consort, as well as the Minnesota and St. Paul Chamber Orchestras.

In 1996, 15 years after “Courtship Songs” premiered, one Commissioning Club project reached a worldwide audience of millions… Stephen Paulus’s setting of “Pilgrim Jesus,” by the English poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, was one of the carols performed at King’s College, Cambridge, as part of the “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols,” broadcast live on both the BBC’s World Service and public radio stations across America.

All in all, not a bad return on the Commissioning Club’s investment.

Music Played in Today's Program

Stephen Paulus (1949-2014) Courtship Songs Jane Garvin, flute; Merilee Klemp, oboe; Mina Fisher, cello; Jill Dawe, piano innova 539

On This Day

Births

• 1920 - Virtuoso jazz saxophonist and "Be-bop" innovator, Charlie Parker, in Kansas City;

• 1936 - French composer and conductor Gilbert Amy, in Paris;

Deaths

• 1661 - French composer Louis Couperin, in Paris; His brother, Charles Couperin (1638-1679) was also a composer, as was his nephew - the famous François Couperin (1668-1733), nicknamed "Le Grand."

• 1972 - French composer and conductor, René Leibowitz, age 59, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1720 - Handel: oratorio, "Esther," at Canons, county seat of the Duke of Chandos (Gregorian date: Sept. 9);

• 1853 - Josef Strauss: "The First and the Last" Waltz (his first composition), at Unger's Casino in Hernals (Austria) by the Johann Strauss Orchestra, conducted by the composer (who had taken over the family orchestra for a time due to the sickness of his older brother, Johann Strauss, Jr.);

• 1882 - Brahms: Piano Trio in C, Op. 97, at a private home in Bad Ischl; Brahms played a practical joke on the audience by introducing the trio as having been composed by his friend, the composer and pianist Ignaz Brull, who was also in Bad Ischl at the time; The official premiere of the Trio occurred in Frankfurt on December 29 that year, with a violinist named Heermann and a cellist name Müller, with Brahms at the pianist;

• 1952 - John Cage "4:33," for any instrument, in Woodstock, N.Y.;

• 1981 - Stephen Paulus: "Courtship Songs" for flute, oboe, cello and piano, in St. Paul, Minn.;

• 1995 - Kaija Saariaho: "Graal Théàtre" for violin and orchestra, in London by the BBC Symphony, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen with Gidon Kremer the soloist;

• 2000 - Wolfgang Rihm: "Deus Passus (after St. Luke)," at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, by the Gächinger Kantorei and Stuttgart Bach Collegium, conducted by Helmut Rilling; This work was one of four passion settings commissioned by the International Bach Academy to honor the 250th anniversary of Bach's death in the year 2000 (see also: Sept 1, 5 & 8).