Today’s concert is a public foray into how the passage of time in history can be perceived subjectively. The music performed today was written approximately a century ago. A concert of music that might have been performed in 1925, made up of music from the 1820s would have struck the audience in 1925 as welcome, but quite old fashioned and historic. Beethoven, Schubert, and Carl Maria von Weber, for example,…

John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951) Born February 28, 1876, in Park Ridge, Illinois Died April 26, 1951, in Chicago Skyscrapers: A Ballet of Modern American Life Composed 1923-24 Premiered on February 19, 1926 in New York, New York at the Metropolitan Opera House conducted by Louis Hasselmans featuring dance soloists Albert Troy, Rita de Leporte, and Roger Dodge Performance Time: Approximately 21 minutes Few composers in the 1920s walked a finer…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) was perhaps the most famous, respected, and original composer from the Protestant north of German Europe during the later eighteenth century, a worthy equal and rival of two composers whose posthumous reputation and place in the repertory far exceeds his own—Haydn, 18 years younger and a Catholic subject of the Habsburg Empire—and Mozart, also a Catholic Austrian, who, although more than 40 years younger than C.P.E. Bach…

C.P.E. Bach (1714-1788) Born March 8, 1714, in Weimar, Germany Died December 14, 1788, in Hamburg, Germany Heilig, H.775 Composed 1776 Premiered premiered during Michaelmas in 1776 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu, H.777 Composed 1774-78 Premiered March 18, 1778 Conducted by C.P.E. Bach Performance Time: Approximately 73 minutes Des Rufs partheyische Posaune, O Bach! ist für Dein Lob zu klein; Dein…

Scott Joplin Overture to Treemonisha Born November 24, 1868 in Texarkana, TX Died April 1, 1917 in New York, New York Composed 1911 Premiered on January 28, 1972 in Atlanta, Georgia Conducted by Robert Shaw Performance Time: Approximately 8 minutes While all the composers on this program worked in a variety of genres and styles, Scott Joplin’s (1868- 1917) success almost entirely came from his compositions for piano, in particular…

This concert program tries to put a dent—so to speak—in a prejudice (if prejudices had metal surfaces like cars) too many of us still share: that there is a fundamental tension between popular music and classical “art” music, particularly in America. There is none; great music thrives in all genres from Taylor Swift to John Cage. Indeed, the historical record—the facts—tell a different story. In North America, part of our…