William Henry Fry

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1813, William Henry Fry was born in Philadelphia. As a journalist, he was one of the most vociferous champions of American concert music, and put his money where his mouth was by becoming a composer, creating a number of programmatic works, including a Niagara symphony and another titled Santa Claus. Above all else, Fry was passionate about opera, and wrote several of his own.

Fry was a colorful — if understandably biased — music critic. Here’s an excerpt from his 1862 review of a New York performance of Verdi’s Il Trovatore — an opera only 9 years old at that time:

“Trovatore … has a wonderful plot, beyond human comprehension; though finally we learn in the last scene that [the tenor] is made into soup by the order of his brother [the baritone], who then expresses his emotion and surprise on learning of the transaction as the curtain falls. As to the music — there are some charming, popular, ingenious, artistic … points; [but] there are others egregiously vulgar and rowdy. The Anvil Chorus, for example, is about the equal to a scene of mending a sewer set to music; or repairing a pair of cast-off leather breeches.”

Music Played in Today's Program

William Henry Fry (1813-1864): Macbeth Overture; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Tony Rowe, conductor; Naxos 8.559057

On This Day

Births

• 1813 - American composer and journalist, William Henry Fry, in Philadelphia. Some earlier sources list August 19 as Fry’s birth date.

• 1865 - Russian composer Alexander Glazunov, in St. Petersburg (Julian date: July 29)

• 1893 - American opera composer Douglas Moore, in Cutchogue (Long Island), New York

• 1932 - German-born English composer Alexander Goehr, in Berlin

• 1935 - Georgian composer Giya Kancheli, in Tbilisi, former USSR

Deaths

• 1806 - Austrian composer Michael Haydn (younger brother of Franz Joseph), in Salzburg, 68

• 1970 - German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, 52, commits suicide in Königsdorf, leaving behind his posthumous Requiem.

• 1997 - American composer Conlon Nancarrow, 84, in Mexico City

Premieres

• 1949 - Milhaud: Octet for Strings, at Mills College in California, by the combined Budapest and Paganini Quartets

• 1965 - Wm. Schuman: Philharmonic Fanfare, by the New York Philharmonic conducted by William Steinberg, at the orchestra's first outdoor concert in New York’s Central Park

• 1968 - Grofé: Virginia City: Requiem for a Ghost Town, in Virginia City, Nevada

• 1981 - John Tavener: Akhmatova: Requiem, at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland

• 1992 - James MacMillan: Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (Percussion Concerto), at Royal Albert Hall in London, with soloist Evelyn Glennie and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Jukka-Pekka Sarsate conducting

• 2001 - Per Norgard: String Quartet No. 9 (Into the Source), at the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival, by the Orion String Quartet

Others

• 1778 - Mozart finishes his Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Serenade in Vienna

• 1788 - Mozart finishes his Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter) in Vienna

• 1825 - Mendelssohn, 16, finishes his opera Camacho’s Wedding

• 1895 - The late-summer “Promenade” Concerts (better known as the Proms) are launched in London by Sir Henry Wood and Robert Newman