Edward Collins premieres

Synopsis

In 1923, the Chicago North Shore Festival sponsored a competition for new orchestral works. Of the 47 scores submitted, five finalists were selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included two leading American composers of that day: George W. Chadwick and Henry Hadley. Two of the five works that made the final cut were by the same composer, 33-year-old Illinois native Edward Collins.

On today’s date in 1923, conductor Frederick Stock and his Chicago Symphony played through the five finalists’ scores at a public event at Northwestern University, with Collins in attendance to hear his two contrasting pieces. The first was Mardi Gras, and, as you might expect, it was an upbeat work in a party mood.

The second Collins piece was 1914 — a grim orchestral evocation of World War I that Collins later retitled Tragic Overture. It was that work that won the competition’s $1000 first prize, and so impressed conductor Stock that he performed the piece in New York and Chicago.

Although Collins was famous in his day, after his death in 1951, his music was largely forgotten. Perhaps his unabashedly Romantic style seemed dated in the avant-garde 50s and 60s. After more than half a century after his death, a series of new recordings of Collins’ orchestral works made by the Concordia Orchestra under Marin Alsop have helped to reintroduce his music to a new generation.

Music Played in Today's Program

Edward Collins (1889-1951): Mardi Gras and Tragic Overture; Concordia Orchestra; Marin Alsop, conductor; Albany 267

On This Day

Births

• 1893 - British composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goosens, in London

• 1898 - American composer, pianist and conductor Ernst Bacon, in Chicago

• 1938 - American composer and pianist William Bolcom, in Seattle

Deaths

• 1924 - Irish-born American composer and cellist Victor Herbert, 65, in New York

Premieres

• 1914 - Stravinsky: opera, Le Rossignol (The Nightingale), at the Paris Opéra, with Pierre Monteux conducting

• 1919 - Gershwin: musical La, La, Lucille, at the Henry Miller Theater in New York City

• 1923 - Edward Joseph Collins: Tragic Overture (1914) and Mardi Gras performed at Northwestern University by the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock as part of the finalists' concert of the North Shore Festival competition for new works for orchestra. Collins won the $1000 first prize for his Tragic Overture (1914).

• 1953 - Stockhausen: Kontra-Punkte for ten instruments, in Cologne

• 1963 - Lou Harrison: Pacifika Rondo for an orchestra of Western and Oriental instruments, at the University of Hawaii

• 1964 - Copland: Music for a Great City (from the film score to Something Wild), by the London Symphony conducted by the composer

• 1967 - George Crumb: Echoes of Time and the River (Four Processionals for Orchestra), in Chicago. This work won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1967.

• 1990 - Philip Glass: chamber opera Hydrogen Jukebox (to poems by Allen Ginsberg), by the Philip Glass ensemble conducted by Martin Goldray, in a staged version presented at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. A concert version was premiered at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, on April 29, 1990.

• 2001 - Birtwistle: Tango for Betty, dedicated to the 80-year old music patron, Betty Freeman, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting (see May 25 & 27 as well)

• 2002 - Henry Brant: Ghosts and Gargoyles for solo flute and flute ensemble, in Toronto, Canada, by soloist Robert Aitken and the New Music Concerts Ensemble, conducted by the composer

Others

• 1731 - London’s Academy for Vocal Music is renamed The Academy of Ancient Music, with Johann Christoph Pepsuch its artistic director (Gregorian date: June 6)