A famous — and a not-quite-as-famous — overture

Synopsis

Two concert overtures — one very famous and one not so famous — had their premiere performances on today's date.

In 1956, this music by British composer Arthur Bliss provided a festive opening to that year’s Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama. The Edinburgh Festival Overture is a salute to Scotland's premiere arts festival, presented annually in late summer and early fall since 1947.

Also premiered on today’s date was Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, commissioned for an international Exhibition of Industry and the Arts in Moscow, and first played at an all-Tchaikovsky concert on today’s date in 1882. As pleased as Tchaikovsky was that his music was to be presented at the Exhibition, he was definitely not enthusiastic about the commission.

“There is nothing less to my liking than composing for the sake of some festival. What, for instance, can you write on the occasion of the opening of an exhibition except banalities and generally noisy passages?” he wrote. On top of all that, the commission called for something “with a hint of church music, which must certainly be Orthodox.”

Glumly, Tchaikovsky to work, writing to another friend: “I don't think it has any serious merits, and I shouldn’t be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts.”

Ah, Peter Ilyich — you certainly got that one wrong!

Music Played in Today's Program

Arthur Bliss (1891-1975): Edinburgh Overture; City of Birmingham Symphony; Vernon Handley, conductor; EMI Classics 69388

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): 1812 Overture; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Phillips 442 011

On This Day

Births

• 1561 - Italian composer Jacopo Peri, in Rome. His setting of Rinuccini’s poem Dafne, staged in 1600, is credited as the first opera.

Deaths

• 1813 - Bohemian composer Jan Krittel Vanhal (Johann Baptist Wanhal), 74, in Vienna

Premieres

• 1882 - Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture, on an all-Tchaikovsky program presented during an Art and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow (Julian date: Aug. 8)

• 1943 - Manuel Ponce: Violin Concerto, in Mexico City, conducted by Carlos Chavez

• 1956 - Bliss: Edinburgh Overture, at the opening of the Edinburgh Festival of Music and Drama

• 1958 - Menotti: opera Maria Golovin, at the International Exposition in Brussels, Belgium

• 1961 - John Harbison: Duo for flute and piano, at the Brooklyn Museum, with flutist Neil Zaslaw and pianist Juliette Arnold

• 1965 - Harrison Birtwistle: Tragoedia for chamber ensemble, at Wardour Castle in England, during the Castle Summer School of Music, by the Melos Ensemble conducted by Lawrence Foster

• 1973 - Carl Orff: cantata De Temporum Fine Commedia (A Play of the End of Time) at the Salzburg Festival, with Herbert von Karajan conducting

• 1979 - Harbison: opera The Winter’s Tale in San Francisco

• 1980 - Rubbra: Symphony No. 11, in London by the BBC Northern Symphony

• 1992 - Joan Tower: Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman No. 5 (dedicated to Joan Harris), at the opening of the Joan and Irving Harris Concert Hall at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado

• 2004 - Zhou Long: The Immortal for orchestra, at a BBC Proms concerts with the BBC Symphony, Leonard Slatkin conducting

• 2004 - Peter Maxwell Davies: Naxos Quartet No. 4 (Children’s Games), in the Chapel of the Royal Palace, Oslo (Norway) during the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, by the Maggini Quartet