Mozart in Salzburg, Bloch in America

Synopsis

In the spring of 1775, shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, and the sparks of the American Revolution burst into flames at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Far away in Salzburg, Austria, a 19-year-old composer named Wolfgang Mozart was spending most of that year composing five violin concertos. The fifth, in A major, was completed on this day in 1775. At the time, Mozart was concertmaster of the orchestra in the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Archbishops don’t have their own orchestras now, but they did then — at least in Europe, if not in the American colonies.

A century and a half later, America was celebrating its sesquicentennial, and the magazine Musical America offered a prize of $3,000 for the best symphonic work on an American theme. The prize was awarded unanimously to Ernest Bloch, a Swiss-born composer who had arrived in this country only a decade before. But already, sailing into the harbor of New York, he had conceived of a large patriotic composition. Several years later, it took shape in three movements as America: An Epic Rhapsody for Orchestra.

It premiered in New York on today’s date in 1928, with simultaneous performances the next day in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fifteen other orchestras programmed it within a year. Curiously, although Bloch remains a highly respected composer, his America Rhapsody from 1928 is seldom performed today.

Music Played in Today's Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Violin Concerto No. 5; Jean-Jacques Kantorow, violin; Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Leopold Hager, conductor; Denon 7504

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): America: An Epic Rhapsody; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3135

On This Day

Births

• 1871 - American composer and conductor Henry Hadley, in Somerville, Massachusetts

• 1909 - Danish composer Vagn Holmboe, in Horsens, eastern Jutland

• 1938 - American composer and conductor John Harbison, in Orange, New Jersey

Deaths

• 1738 - French composer Jean Joseph Mouret, 56, in Charenton

• 1783 - Spanish composer and organist Padre Antonio Soler, 54, at the monastery of El Escorial

• 1974 - French composer André Jolivet, 69, in Paris

Premieres

• 1721 - Handel: opera Floridante (Julian date: Dec. 9);

• 1823 - Schubert: incidental music to Rosamunde, in Vienna, at the Theater an der Wien

• 1879 - Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite No. 1, in Moscow (Julian date: Dec. 8)

• 1886 - Brahms: Piano Trio No. 3, in Budapest. The work was also presented in Vienna on February 26, 1887, by members of the Heckmann Quartet with the composer at the piano.

• 1890 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 3, in Sat. Petersbur (Julian date: Dec. 8)

• 1928 - Bloch: America, in New York City

• 1959 - Stravinsky: Double Canon (Raoul Dufy in memoriam) in New York at Town Hall, during a Stravinsky Festival

• 1999 - Harbison: opera The Great Gatsby, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with a cast including Jerry Hadley as Gatsby and Dawn Upshaw as Daisy, with James Levine conducting

Others

• 1775 - Mozart finishes his Violin Concerto No. 5, in Salzburg. The work was probably premiered soon after, with the composer as soloist.

• 1915 - Stravinsky’s public debut as a conductor, leading a performance of his Firebird Ballet Suite at a benefit concert organized by Diaghilev in Geneva, Switzerland