The Philharmonic does Beethoven

Synopsis

On today's date in 1842, an orchestra of 63 players performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 at the first concert of the Philharmonic Society of New York. This 1842 performance of Beethoven's Fifth occurred 34 years after the work's premiere in Vienna in 1808.

One early and avid Philharmonic Society fan was George Templeton Strong, a young New York lawyer who recorded this appraisal of the symphony after another Philharmonic Society performance of Beethoven's Fifth in 1844:

"The first movement, with its abrupt opening, the complicated entanglement of harmonies that makes up the rest of it, is not very satisfactory or intelligible to me as a whole, though it abounds in exquisite little scraps of melody that come sparkling out like stars through a cloudy sky... but the second and fourth movements—the third ain't much—are enough to put Beethoven at the head of all instrumental composers if he'd never written another note."

In 1865, Strong became the President of the Philharmonic Society, and founded the Church Music Association, which presented sacred choral compositions by leading European composers. George Tempelton Strong's diaries are a fascinating record of life in New York City during the 19th century. Entries from Strong's diaries were quoted frequently as part of the Ken and Ric Burns' PBS television documentaries on the American Civil War and the history of New York City.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Symphony No. 5 Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor. DG Archiv 439 900

On This Day

Births

• 1637 - Italian composer Bernardo Pasquini, in Massa da Valdinievole, Lucca;

• 1840 - German composer Hermann Goetz, in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad);

• 1863 - Italian composer Pietro Mascagni, in Livorno;

• 1887 - Austrian-born American composer Ernst Toch, in Vienna;

• 1910 - American composer and bandmaster Richard Franko Goldman, in New York City;

• 1912 - Welsh composer Daniel Jones, in Pembroke;

Premieres

• 1861 - Brahms: "Handel Variations," Op. 24, in Hamburg, by pianist Clara Schumann;

• 1873 - Tchaikovsky: symphonic fantasia "The Tempest", in Moscow (Gregorian date: Dec. 19);

• 1879 - Berlioz: opera "La Prise de Troie" (The Capture of Troy), Acts 1 & 2 of "Les Troyens" (The Trojans), posthumously, in a concert performance in Paris at the Théatre du Châtelet;

• 1889 - Gilbert & Sullivan: operetta, "The Gondoliers." at the Savoy Theatre in London;

• 1890 - Tchaikovsky: opera, "Pique Dame," in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Dec. 19);

• 1898 - Rimsky-Korsakov: opera "Mozart and Salieri," in Moscow, Truffi conducting (Julian date: Nov. 25);

• 1924 - Carl Ruggles: "Men and Mountains," in New York City;

• 1939 - Walton: Violin Concerto, by the Cleveland Orchestra, Artur Rodzinski conducting, with Jascha Heifetz (who commissioned the work) as the soloist;

• 1975 - Lou Harrison Symphony No. 2 ("Elegiac"), by the Oakland Youth Symphony, Denis de Coteau conducting;

• 1999 - Gunther Schuller: Saxophone Sonata, in New York, by members of the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society;

Others

• 1732 - John Rich opens his "Theatre Royal, Covent Garden" in London (Gregorian date: Dec. 18); Five years earlier, in 1728, Rich had launched English-language “ballad opera” as a genre when he staged John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London (as contemporary wags put it, the wildly successful Beggar’s Opera ”made Gay Rich and Rich Gay”); Even though The Beggar’s Opera parodied the prentions of Italian opera seria, it was Rich who gave Handel’s beleaguered opera company a home at Covent Garden in 1734-1737; Handel’s Ariodante, Alcina, Atalanta, Arminio, Giustino and Berenice were first staged at Rich’s theater;

• 1842 - First concert by The Philharmonic Society of New York (now the New York Philharmonic Orchestra), in the Apollo Rooms at 410 Broadway, program including Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and Weber's "Oberon" Overture.