We’re coming back to another installment of history and dates. Last week was a good week of some new features on the site (see ‘Resources’) and I hope there is more of that to come. Also, I’m realizing that not ALL premieres and events that ever happened in the history of ever are actually included in these Wikipedia date entries, but a few google attempts do not show me any compendiums of premiere dates of symphonies or anything of the like. So some of that will be manual. Let’s see what we have for this week.
March 31
1913 – The Vienna Concert Society rioted during a performance of mordernist [sic, Wikipedia] music by Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, and Anton von Webern, causing a premature end to the concert due to violence. This concert became known as the Skandalkonzert. (That’s super cool! We will be seeing some of Berg and Zemlinksy in the coming weeks.
Births:
1685 – Johann Sebastian Bach, German organist and composer (He’s relatively important….)
1732 – Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer (wow… also rather significant)
1747 – Johann Abraham Peter Schulz, German pianist and composer
1809 – Otto Lindblad, Swedish composer
1893 – Clemens Krauss, Austrian conductor
Deaths:
1880 – Henryk Wieniawski, Polish violinist and composer
Bach and Haydn on the same day (granted, 47 years apart)? Wow.
April 1
No events. Births:
1629 – Jean-Henri d’Anglebert, French organist and composer (d. 1691)
1721 – Pieter Hellendaal, Dutch-English organist, violinist, and composer (d. 1799)
1866 – Ferruccio Busoni, Italian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1924) (Wrote the first [and only?] piano concerto to incorporate a chorus)
1871 – F. Melius Christiansen, Norwegian-American violinist and conductor (d. 1955)
1873 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1943) (This guy!!!!)
1917 – Dinu Lipatti, Romanian pianist and composer (d. 1950)
1921 – William Bergsma, American composer (d. 1994)
1965 – Robert Steadman, English composer
Deaths:
1528 – Francisco de Peñalosa, Spanish composer (b. 1470)
1917 – Scott Joplin, American pianist and composer (b. 1868) (I know, not really classical… but it’s Scott Joplin)
2013 – David Burge, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1930)
Busoni and Rachmaninoff on the same day. They both have big, heavy piano concerti to their names.
April 2
1800 – Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premiere of his First Symphony in Vienna.
Births:
none. At least we have Beethoven’s first…
Deaths:
2013 – Robert Ward, American composer (b. 1917)
Slim Pickings
April 3
1869- Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s piano concerto premieres in Copenhagen
Births:
1639 – Alessandro Stradella, Italian composer (d. 1682)
1682 – Valentin Rathgeber, German organist and composer (d. 1750)
1889 – Grigoraş Dinicu, Romanian violinist and composer (d. 1949)
1895 – Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Italian-American composer (d. 1968)
Deaths:
1868 – Franz Berwald, Swedish composer and surgeon (b. 1796)- Composer and surgeon? Accomplished.
1897 – Johannes Brahms, German pianist and composer (b. 1833)
1950 – Kurt Weill, German-American composer (b. 1900)
1962 – Manolis Kalomiris, Greek composer (b. 1883)
1972 – Ferde Grofé, American pianist and composer (b. 1882)
April 4
Births:
1676 – Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Italian composer (d. 1760)
1752 – Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, Italian composer (d. 1837)
1875 – Pierre Monteux, French conductor (d. 1964)
1905 – Eugène Bozza, French composer and conductor (d. 1991)
Deaths:
None. Good day for music!
April 5
Births:
1784 – Louis Spohr, German violinist, composer, and conductor (d. 1859) Pretty prolific yet not terribly well-known composer. Ten symphonies (I think), a clarinet concerto come to mind. I believe he is one of the few composers (along with Berlioz) who probably composed directly to a score without using a piano, or at least it has been suggested before.
1908 – Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor (d. 1989) Karajan!
Deaths:
1617 – Alonso Lobo, Spanish composer (b. 1555)
1967 – Mischa Elman, Ukrainian violinist (b. 1891)
April 6
1962 – Leonard Bernstein causes controversy with his remarks from the podium during a New York Philharmonic concert featuring Glenn Gould performing Brahms‘ First Piano Concerto – teehee. Although I am not a fan of his humming and such, Mr. Gould does do a fantastic job with some of the pieces he performs as long as he doesn’t intentionally deviate from the score.
Births:
1660 – Johann Kuhnau, German organist and composer (d. 1722)
1672 – André Cardinal Destouches, French composer (d. 1749)
1708 – Georg Reutter II, Austrian composer (d. 1772)
1815 – Robert Volkmann, German composer (d. 1883)
1929 – André Previn, German-American pianist, composer, and conductor
Deaths:
1971 – Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1882)
There are lots and lots of big names in this week’s list, and it’s a shame I can’t get to them all. I’d be way too busy, and frankly, as much as I want to take advantage of the opportunity to say something about this or that person or post something related to a composer or a premiere or an event, it kind of messes with my train of thought a bit and the pieces that I’m currently listening to at the moment, so… I’ll probably be doing less of that in the future, no matter how tempting it is.
Fugue for Thought 
Hello, is this thing on? I wanted to comment on that Sibelius sypmphony you sent me. It got very interesting at almost the 9 minute mark. But then lost me again at almost the
Really, it didn't capture my whole comment and I don't have the heart to retype it. Basically, I want to start my symphony exploration with the composers I know I love: Bach and Vivaldi and see what I get out of them.