Timely Argento and Takemitsu

Synopsis

It was on this day in 1972 that “A Ring of Time” by American composer Dominick Argento was premiered by the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. The work was commissioned to celebrate that orchestra’s 70th anniversary. “A Ring of Time” is subtitled “Preludes and Pageants for Orchestra and Bells,” and evokes the hours of the day, from dawn to midnight, and the seasons of the year.

Though born in York, Pennsylvania, Argento was of Italian heritage, and after spending a year studying in Italy, returned there often to reflect and compose. Argento said: “On one level the title of ‘A Ring of Time’ refers to the predominant role assigned to bells... those aural signals of time’s passing. But it should also be mentioned the work was wholly composed in Florence where the hourly ringing of church bells is inescapable.”

Bells figured prominently in another 20th-century work by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu entitled “From Me Flows What You Call Time,” which was premiered by the Boston Symphony in 1990, in New York City, as a commission to celebrate the centennial of Carnegie Hall. Again, bells play a significant role, and Takemitsu directs that at the end of his piece, a series of small bells be rung gently from the balcony above and around the audience.

Music Played in Today's Program

Dominick Argento (1927-2019): A Ring of Time –Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, cond. (Reference 91)

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996): From Me Flows What You Call Time –Pacific Symphony; Carl St. Clair, cond. (Sony 63044)

On This Day

Births

• 1875 - British composer and organist Cyril Bradley Rootham, in Bristol;

• 1962 - American composer and pianist Ken Noda, in New York City;

Deaths

• 1880 - French composer Jacques Offenbach, age 61, in Paris;

• 1940 - Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, age 40, in Mexico City;

Premieres

• 1762 - Gluck: opera, "Orfeo ed Euridice" (1st version in Italian), in Vienna at the Kaiserliches Hoftheater;

• 1898 - Elgar: cantata, "Caractacus," at the Leeds Festival.

• 1972 - Argento: "A Ring of Time," by the Minneapolis Symphony, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting;

• 1973 - Havergal Brian: Symphony No. 28, by the New Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting;

• 1988 - Daniel Pinkham: "Sonata da Camera" (Chamber Sonata) for flute (alternating alto flute) and viola, at Jordan Hall of the New England Conservatory in Boston, by flutist Fenwick Smith and violist Burton Fine;

• 2001 - Stephen Paulus: "A Place for Hope" for chorus and chamber ensemble, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., by members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra with the Choral Arts Ensemble of Rochester, Minn., conducted by Andreas Delfs;

Others

• 1867 - The British musicologist George Grove (of Grove Dictionary fame) and the British composer Arthur Sullivan (of later Gilbert & Sullivan fame) arrive in Vienna, seeking lost works of Schubert;

• 1930 - The New York Philharmonic begins its famous series of weekly Sunday afternoon national broadcasts with a program from Carnegie Hall conducted by Erich Kleiber; The first-ever radio broadcast of the New York Philharmonic had occurred on August 12, 1922, when a summer-time concert from Lewisohn Stadium conducted by Willem van Hoogstraten was relayed locally over WJZ in New York.