Synopsis
Despite its relation to both the physics of sound and pure mathematics, music, for most people — including composers — is essentially an emotional language.
Despite its abstract sound, that’s the case of this orchestral piece, which premiered in Rochester, New York, on today’s date in 1938. The music, Elegy in Memory of Ravel, was by 22-year-old American composer David Diamond.
Nine years earlier, as a precocious adolescent, he had met Ravel during the French composer’s American tour of 1928. Ravel was impressed with the lad’s talent, and encouraged him to pursue a career in music, as did George Gershwin, who served on a jury that awarded one of Diamond’s works first prize. He lost both these important mentors in 1937, with the sudden deaths of first Gershwin, then Ravel. The day after learning of Ravel’s death, he began work on his Elegy.
“It is an expression of terrible loss,” Diamond recalled in an interview decades later. “As the piece began to take shape, almost unconsciously, I heard it as a ritual — an elegy, but a ritualistic one. I asked that there be no applause at the end.”
The work’s 1938 premiere performance was conducted by Howard Hanson, then the head of the Eastman School of Music and the conductor of its famous orchestra. Diamond’s modern, frankly dissonant idiom didn’t sit well with Hanson’s more conservative tastes. He recalled Hanson asking “David, why do you have to write such modern music?” Even so, Hanson respected both Diamond and his music enough to conduct the new piece.
Music Played in Today's Program
David Diamond (1915-2005): Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel; Orchestra of St. Luke’s; John Adams, conductor; Nonesuch 79249
On This Day
Births
1892 - American folksinger and folksong collector John Jacob Niles, in Louisville, Kentucky
Premieres
1865 - Meyerbeer: opera L’Africaine (The African Woman), at the Paris Opéra
1892 - Dvorák: In Nature’s Realm Overture, in Prague
1892 - Sibelius: symphonic poem/oratorio Kullervo for vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra, in Helsinki, with the composer conducting
1928 - Cowell: Sinfonietta, in Boston, Nicholas Slonimsky conducting
1938 - Diamond: Elegy in Memory of Maurice Ravel, in Rochester, New York
1948 - Stravinsky: ballet Orpheus, by the American Society in New York City
1966 - Douglas Moore: opera Carrie Nation, in Lawrence, Kansas
1981 - John Williams: Pops on the March by the Boston Pops with the composer conducting
2005 - Arne Nordheim: Fonos for trombone and orchestra, in Bergen, Norway, by the Bergen Philharmonic
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About Composers Datebook®
Host John Birge presents a daily snapshot of composers past and present, with timely information, intriguing musical events and appropriate, accessible music related to each.
He has been hosting, producing and performing classical music for more than 25 years. Since 1997, he has been hosting on Minnesota Public Radio's Classical Music Service. He played French horn for the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestra and performed with them on their centennial tour of Europe in 1995. He was trained at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Eastman School of Music and Interlochen Arts Academy.