Herbert L. Clarke

Synopsis

Today a salute to a remarkable American composer and performer – the cornet virtuoso Herbert Lincoln Clarke.

Clarke was born in Wolburn, Massachusetts on September 12, 1867, into a peripatetic musical family. He began to play his brother’s cornet and was soon earning fifty cents a night playing in a restaurant band. At age 19, Clarke won first prize at a cornet competition in Indiana, and, in 1893, after many years on the road, Clarke got the call from John Philip Sousa to join his illustrious organization as its star soloist, a position he held for over 20 years.

From 1900 on, Clarke began to compose and make recordings of his own music. In 1904, while on a return voyage from England with the Sousa Band, Clarke completed one of his best-known pieces, a work originally titled “Valse Brilliante.” While waiting to dock in New York, however, at Sousa’s suggestion, Clarke changed the title to “Sounds from the Hudson.”

Herbert L. Clarke eventually settled in California and died there on today’s date in 1945. But the much-traveled composer and performer was buried on the opposite coast – in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. – near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.

Music Played in Today's Program

Herbert L. Clarke (1867 - 1945) — Sounds from the Hudson (Valse brillante) (Wynton Marsalis, cornet; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Donald Hunsberger, cond.) CBS 42137

On This Day

Births

• 1697 - German composer and flutist Johann Joachim Quantz, in Oberscheden, Hannover;

• 1861 - French-born American composer Charles Martin Loeffler, in Alsace;

• 1862 - German-born American composer and conductor, Walter Damrosch, in Breslau;

Deaths

• 1963 - French composer Francis Poulenc, age 64, in Paris;

Premieres

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 81 ("Jesus schläft, was soll ich hoffen?") performed on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach's first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24);

• 1735 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 14 ("Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit") performed in Leipzig on the 4th Sunday after Epiphany;

• 1892 - Rachmaninoff: “Trio élégiaque” No. 1 in G minor (Gregorian date: Feb. 11);

• 1893 - Brahms: Fantasies for piano Nos. 1-3, from Op. 117 and Intermezzo No. 2, from Op. 117, in Vienna;

• 1917 - Zemlinsky: opera "A Floretine Tragedy," in Stuttgart at the Hoftheater;

• 1920 - Frederick Converse: Symphony in c, by the Boston Symphony, Pierre Monteux conducting;

• 1942 - Copland: Orchestral Suite from "Billy the Kid" ballet, by the Boston Symphony;

• 1948 - Harold Shapero: "Symphony for Classical Orchestra," by the Boston Symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein;

• 1958 - Walton: "Partita" for orchestra, in Cleveland;

• 1959 - Hindemith: "Pittsburgh Symphony," by the Pittsburgh Symphony, conducted by the composer;

• 1970 - William Schuman: "In Praise of Shahn," in New York;

• 1985 - Libby Larsen: Symphony ("Water Music"), by the Minnesota Orchestra, Sir Neville Marriner conducting.