John Howell Morrison

Synopsis

Most of us — if we’re lucky — chug along more or less contentedly in an uneventful day-by-day routine, a little like the opening of this chamber work by American composer John Howell Morrison.

But sometimes, in some lives, something happens that suddenly disrupts the uneventful, comfortable routine, something that knocks all routine and normality straight out of the ballpark: perhaps it’s the loss of a job, bad medical news, the death of a friend or spouse, or a worldwide pandemic, perhaps, and suddenly routine physical or mental health is so shaken that the soundtrack of life shifts to something uncomfortably similar to that of a bad horror film.

But most of us — if we’re lucky — somehow survive, and perhaps even grow a bit stronger from the experience.

As the old saying goes: Hard Weather Makes Good Wood — and that’s the title Morrison gave this piece, scored for string quartet and electronic tape, recorded on today’s date in 2002 as the title track on a collection of his chamber works.

And, yes, Morrison confesses that Hard Weather Makes Good Wood, was, in fact, composed during a period of intense personal struggle in his own life.

Music Played in Today's Program

John Howell Morrison (b. 1956): Hard Weather Makes Good Wood; Intergalactic Contemporary Ensemble; Innova 584

On This Day

Births

• 1813 - American composer and journalist, William Henry Fry, in Philadelphia (see also August 10)

• 1881 - Rumanian composer, violinist, and conductor Georges Enesco (Enescu), in Liveni-Virnaz

Deaths

• 1929 - Russian ballet impressario Sergei Diaghilev, 57, in Venice

Premieres

• 1952 - Ginastera: ballet Estancia, in Buenos Aires;

• 1957 - Bernstein: musical West Side Story, as a trial run in Washington, D.C. at the National Theater, choreography and direction by Jerome Robbins, conducted by Max Goberman. The show opened in New York City at the Winter Garden on September 26, 1957.

• 1961 - Peggy Glanville-Hicks: opera Nausicaa, in Athens, Greece

• 1988 - Lutoslawski: Piano Concerto, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria

Others

• 1990 - At Tanglewood, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Boston Symphony in Britten’s Three Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 at his last concert appearance before his death. On the same program, Carl St. Clair conducted a performance of Bernstein’s Arias and Barcarolles (as orchestrated by Bright Sheng). The Bernstein-led performances from this concert have been issued on compact disc on the Deutsche Grammophon label.