Synopsis

In the early years of the 20th century, a hauntingly beautiful piece of Grecian sculpture – a bust of the head of the goddess Aphrodite – was donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Art. There it inspired this orchestral work by Boston composer George Whitefield Chadwick. Chadwick’s symphonic tone poem Aphrodite was, in the words of the composer, “an attempt to suggest in music the poetic and tragic scenes which may have passed before the sightless eyes of such a goddess.”

Chadwick composed this music during East Coast holidays on Martha’s Vineyard, inspired, he said, by the play of light and wind on the sea before him. It received its premiere at the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut on this date in 1912.

On today’s date in 1999, at a summer musical festival on the opposite coast of America, another musical work inspired by ancient Greece received its first performance. This music was entitled Five Images after Sappho, inspired by texts of the ancient Greek poetess Sappho and written for the remarkable voice of a modern American soprano, Dawn Upshaw. It was premiered at the Ojai Festival in California, and was written by the Finnish composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Music Played in Today's Program

George Whitefield Chadwick (1854 - 1931) Aphrodite Brno State Philharmonic; Jose Serebrier, conductor. Reference 74

Esa-Pekka Salonen (b. 1958) Five Images after Sappho Dawn Upshaw, soprano; London Sinfonietta; Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor. Sony 89158

On This Day

Births

• 1770 - possible birthdate of the British-born early American composer, conductor, and music publisher James Hewitt, in Dartmoor;

• 1932 - American composer and jazz arranger Oliver Nelson, in St. Louis;

Deaths

• 1872 - Polish opera composer Stanislaw Moniuszko, age 53, in Warsaw;

• 1907 - Norwegian composer Agathe Backer-Groendahl, age 59, in Kristiania (now Oslo);

• 1951 - Russian-born American double-bass player, conductor and new music patron, Serge Koussevitzky, age 76, in Boston;

Premieres

• 1811 - Weber: opera, "Abu Hassan." In Munich;

• 1883 - Tchaikovsky: "Festival Coronation March," in Moscow (Julian date: May 23); Tchaikovsky conducted this march at the gala opening concert of Carnegie Hall (then called just "The Music Hall")in New York on May 5, 1891;

• 1912 - Chadwick: tone poem "Aphrodite" in Norfolk, Conn., at the Litchfield Festival;

• 1914 - Sibelius: "Oceanides," in Norfolk, Conn., at the Litchfield Festival, with the composer conducting;

• 1935 - Shostakovich: ballet "The Limpid Stream," in Leningrad at the Maliiy Opera Theater;

• 1935 - R. Strauss: opera "Die schweigsame Frau" (The Silent Woman), in Dresden at the Staatsoper;

• 1994 - Philip Glass: opera "La Belle et la Bête" (Beauty and the Beast) based on the film by Jean Cocteau), by the Philip Glass Ensemble at the Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville (Spain), with Michael Riesman conducting;

• 1997 - Richard Danielpour: ballet "Urban Dances," at New York State Theater by the New York Ballet, choreographed by Miriam Mahdaviani;

• 1999 - Esa-Pekka Salonen: "Five Images after Sappho" for voice and orchestra, at the Ojai Festival in California, with soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, conducted by the composer.