Columbus Day music

Synopsis

Today’s date marks the original Columbus Day, honoring the Italian explorer who for decades was described as the man who “discovered America.” In recent years Native American leaders have pointed out that indigenous peoples had been living on the continent for thousands of years, and Columbus didn’t “discover” anything — in fact, he didn’t even know where he was, which is why he called the people he found here “Indians.” Some historians now think that Viking explorers from Scandinavia arrived in America long before Columbus – and others suggest the Chinese arrived before those Europeans.

Even so, it’s Columbus who has a national holiday (now always observed on the closest Monday in October), and concert music written to celebrate it. For example, there’s a “Columbus Suite” by Victor Herbert, originally commissioned for the 1893 Chicago World Fair to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Columbus voyage, but not actually premiered until 1903.

A much more recent “Columbus-inspired” work, and much more elegiac in tone, is by the Native American composer James DeMars. It’s titled: “Premonitions of Christopher Columbus” and is scored for Native American flute, African drum, and chamber orchestra. In this work, DeMars blends sounds of the various ethnic traditions that would come to make up modern America.

Music Played in Today's Program

Victor Herbert (1859-1924) Columbus Suite Slovak Radio Symphony; Keith Brion, cond. Naxos 8.559027

James DeMars (b. 1952) Premonitions of Christopher Columbus Tos Ensemble with R. Carlos Nakai, Native American flute Canyon 7014

On This Day

Births

• 1686 - German composer and lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss, in Breslau;

• 1713 - Baptismal date of German composer Johann Ludwig Krebs, in Butterstedt, Weimar;

• 1872 - English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire;

• 1880 - English-born Canadian composer and organist Healey Willan, in London;

Deaths

• 1692 - Italian composer Giovanni Battista Vitali, in Bologna, age 60;

Premieres

• 1910 - Vaughan Williams: "A Sea Symphony" (after Walt Whitman) at the Leeds Festival;

• 1924 - Mahler: Symphony No.10 (1st and 3rd movements only), arranged by Ernest Krenek (with additional retouching by Alexander von Zemlinksy and Franz Schalk), by Vienna Philharmonic, Franz Schalk conducting; The American premiere of these two movements was give on Dec. 6, 1949, by the Erie (Pa.) Philharmonic conducted by the composer's nephew, the Austro-American conductor Fritz Mahler (1901-1973); The English musicologist Deryck Cooke prepared the first performing edition of Mahler's entire Tenth Symphony which received its first performance on August 13, 1964, by the London Symphony conducted by Berthold Goldschmidt; Since then, Cooke has revised his arrangement, and several other musicologists have prepared their own rival performing editions of Mahler's surviving notation for this symphony;

• 1931 - Rachmaninoff: “Variations on a Theme of Corelli (La Folia)” for solo piano, in Montréal (Canada), by the composer;

• 1951 - Bizet: opera "Ivan le Terrible" (posthumously), in Bordeaux;

• 1951 - Dessau: opera "Die Verurteilung des Lukullus" (The Trial of Lucullus) (2nd version), in East Berlin at the Deutsche Staatsoper;

• 1961 - Douglas Moore: opera "The Wings of the Dove" (after the novel by Henry James), in New York;

• 1971 - Andrew Lloyd Webber: rock musical "Jesus Christ Superstar," in New York City; A choral version of this musical was performed in Kansas City, Kan. On May 15, 1971, and a touring company was launched to present the musical on July 12, 1971; Prior to any staged presentations, the work was first released as a double LP record album in October of 1970;

• 1984 - Olly Wilson: "Siinfonia," by the Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa conducting;

• 1984 - Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: "Celebration" for orchestra, by the Indianapolis Symphony, John Nelson conducting;

• 1997 - Sallinen: "Overture Solennel," in Monaco by the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, James DePreist conducting;

• 1998 - Philip Glass: opera "The Voyage," at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Bruce Ferden conducting;

• 2000 - Rautavaara: Harp Concerto, in Minneapolis with harpist Kathy Kienzle and the Minnesota Orchestra, Omso Vänskä conducting;

Others

• 1739 - Handel completes in London his Concerto Grosso in Bb, Op. 6, no. 7 (Gregorian date: Oct. 23).