# Classical and historically significant moments



## Nothung (Feb 9, 2012)

I once read that Leonard Bernstein conducted the Adagietto of Mahler's 5th symphony at Robert Kennedy's funeral in NYC. I also read that Yo Yo Ma performed the Sarabande of Bach's 5th cello suite at the 1 year anniversary ceremony of 9/11. I've found these little factoids quite interesting and I enjoy considering what led these famous performers to choose these specific pieces for such events as I listen. Does anyone know of any other anecdotes like these?


----------



## beethovenian (May 2, 2011)

Mozart's Requiem was played during JFK funeral.


----------



## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Rostropovich gave an impromptu solo performance at the Berlin Wall right after it was announced that it would be coming down in 1989. He played the Saraband from JS Bach's Second Cello Suite. He was in Paris when he heard the news and immediately chartered a jet to take him to Berlin. He actually had to borrow one of the guard's chairs because there was no where for him to sit.

http://artmodel.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/rostropovich-at-the-berlin-wall/


----------



## Nothung (Feb 9, 2012)

SuperTonic said:


> Rostropovich gave an impromptu solo performance at the Berlin Wall right after it was announced that it would be coming down in 1989. He played the Saraband from JS Bach's Second Cello Suite. He was in Paris when he heard the news and immediately chartered a jet to take him to Berlin. He actually had to borrow one of the guard's chairs because there was no where for him to sit.
> 
> http://artmodel.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/rostropovich-at-the-berlin-wall/


That is so interesting. I love stuff like this.


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I just posted a recording of one of those moments... Mahler's 9th with Walter and the VPO 1938. The orchestra knew that the Nazis were overtaking Austria and many of their ranks would be forced to flee. It marked the end of a very long era for the Vienna Philharmonic and the last time Mahler would be performed by the orchestra he conducted until after the war.


----------



## Clementine (Nov 18, 2011)

Barber's _Adagio for Strings_ was played on the radio immediately following the announcement of FDR's death, which is especially cool considering the piece was only written 8 years prior. And as I recall Brahms' _Requiem_ was performed by the NY Phil, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Another one with cellist Rostropovich was his playing the Dvorak_ Cello Concerto_ in tears as the army of his country invaded Czechoslovakia, crushing the_ Prague Spring _in 1968. I find this a very moving anecdote, showing he loved his country but hated what it was doing in terms of politics.



> ...Perhaps his most memorable performance was of Dvorak's cello concerto, in London in September 1968, just after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia that crushed the Prague Spring. Protesters outside the Royal Albert Hall were cross that a "Soviet" concert was going ahead. But Mr Rostropovich wept for his country's crimes and its captives' suffering, and so did those who heard him...


Source - http://www.economist.com/node/9142115


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Steve Reich's _Four Organs,_ Carnegie Hall 1973.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Steve Reich's _Four Organs,_ Carnegie Hall 1973.


You mean how a woman in the audience said she can't stand it and made a scene like a madwoman? That's all I know about that piece's relation to history. & I quite like this work, btw, but a friend of mine I played it to - the classic recording by Tilson Thomas - said something like "is that actually a classical piece or a rock piece?" Kind of makes sense, it's not much like what you'd typically think of classical (well, before guys like REich came along, that is).



> ...
> A 1973 performance of Four Organs at Carnegie Hall in New York City nearly caused a riot, with "yells for the music to stop, mixed with applause to hasten the end of the piece."[5] One of the performers, Michael Tilson Thomas, recalls: "One woman walked down the aisle and repeatedly banged her head on the front of the stage, wailing 'Stop, stop, I confess.'"
> ...


Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Organs


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some more:

- A very famous one is Bernstein conducting Beethoven's 9th symphony (he changed the words in the finale from _Ode to Joy_ to _Ode to Freedom_) under the Brandenburg GAte when Germany was united in 1990.

- Simon Rattle conducting the same work at Mauthausen concentration camp to commemorate an anniversary of the Holocaust (former inmates and children, descendants of former inmates were singing in the choir, apparently). There was no applause at the end of the work, as a sign of respect for the dead.

- Penderecki's_ Dies Irae (Auschwitz Oratorio)_ was premiered on the opening of that site as a museum in the late 1960's.

I remember doing a thread on this myself, can't find it, but found this post in another person's similar thread - http://www.talkclassical.com/16016-music-played-historical-events.html#post225972

I was at a concert the week Charles Mackerras died (in 2010, I think), and conductor Mark Elder (a colleague and friend of Mackerras) dedicated his performance of Shostakovich's 10th symphony to the memory of Mackerras. This was a favourite work of Mackerras, and he came here to conduct it here in the 1990's. So, a fitting tribute by Maestro Elder who had seen Mackerras only a short time before he died.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Nothung said:


> I once read that Leonard Bernstein conducted the Adagietto of Mahler's 5th symphony at Robert Kennedy's funeral in NYC. I also read that Yo Yo Ma performed the Sarabande of Bach's 5th cello suite at the 1 year anniversary ceremony of 9/11. I've found these little factoids quite interesting and I enjoy considering what led these famous performers to choose these specific pieces for such events as I listen. Does anyone know of any other anecdotes like these?


Immediately after the J. Kennedy assassination, prior the official state events, there was a televised 'in memoriam' performance of the NY Phil, conducted by Bernstein, of Mahler's "Resurrection" symphony.

Hindemith's Traurmusik has an interesting context:
19 January 1936, Paul Hindemith was in London, booked for the British premiere performance of his viola concerto 'Der Schwanendreher,' with Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony Orchestra the 22nd of January.

A hair before midnight on the 20th January, King George V died. On the 21st of January, from 11 am to 5 pm, Hindemith sat in an office of the BBC and wrote Trauermusik, an homage to the late king. It was performed that same evening in a live broadcast from BBC radio, Boult conducting, the composer as soloist. (The Schwanendreher premiere was cancelled.)
Here is a later recording with Hindemith playing viola (and could that man play the Viola!)




A current recording, for the modern engineering.




Chopin's Preludes Op. 28, Nos. 4 and 6, were played at Chopin's funeral.

John Adams "Transmigration of Souls" commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and an anonymous donor as a commemorative piece for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, was composed and premiered in 2002. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 Tje premiere recording from 2005 won that year's Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Orchestral Performance, and Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

The Hindemith is remarkable in that he sat down and wrote for a very temporal occasion, completing the piece in six hours.

The Adams is also somewhat remarkable in taking into account the length of the piece and the bulk of its performing forces: 
orchestra, chorus, children's choir and pre-recorded tape, the last an assemblage of spoken and read texts, many from the documented posted public messages written by relatives seeking info on loved ones after the attack. Adams received the commission in January of 2002, the work was premiered mid-September that same year.

Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem" is worth looking into, its commission, for what occasion, and the fact it is the most 'anit-war' requiem to date - he was either agnostic or an atheist, so deliberately omitted the credo, which to any Christian is the Crux of any mass. The poetry he chose, that of a poet who died in world war one, is also very pointed. 
Wikipedia, often lacking or doubtful, is more than adequate on this subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Requiem

As to other choices, if independently made by performers, or conductors for that matter, those choices are almost always from a repertoire which they have 'in their pockets' i.e. readily available, and many of those choices are made on not so much a personal basis, but also consider what is most readily perceived as 'appropriate' by the general public. The Mahler 'Resurrection' symphony, or the very 'sublime and poignant' Adagietto from the fifth, the Bach Solo Cello suite, are all known to widely evoke similar emotional responses in people 'at large.' Ergo, they are very logical and appropriate choices.

However sincere, there are a lot of pragmatics involved, and much 'business' about what is chosen.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> ...
> Chopin's Preludes Op. 28, Nos. 4 and 6, were played at Chopin's funeral...


Which reminds me, two works I have been listening to a lot lately were similar.

*Tchaikovsky's* _Piano Trio_, written in memory of Anton Rubinstein, was played at the composer's own funeral service.

A part of* Shostakovich's* _Piano Trio #2_ was also played at a ceremony to mark his death, it was originally written in memory of a musicologist friend of the composer, Ivan Sollertinsky (& it also incorporates a Jewish theme, reflecting on the liberation of the camps going on then, the Holocaust).

Russian piano trios seem to commemorate dead musicians. *Arensky's* first one was in memory of a great Russian cellist of the time, Karl Davydov (not suprisingly, the work to my ears is dominated by that instrument). *Rachmaninov's*_ Trio Elegiaque #2_ was written just after Tchaikovsky died, in memory of a mentor and friend to Rachmaninov. Apparently he didn't want to hear or play this work for over a decade after, the memory for him of his loss was too deep.

Many other works of this sort.* Janacek's *_Piano Sonata 'From the Street'_ written in memory of a worker killed during a protest against Hapsburg rule in the composer's home town of Brno. He impulsively threw the manuscript into the river, but luckily a student copied and saved the first two movements (out of three movements, that's what's left).


----------



## mitchflorida (Apr 24, 2012)

bigshot said:


> I just posted a recording of one of those moments... Mahler's 9th with Walter and the VPO 1938. The orchestra knew that the Nazis were overtaking Austria and many of their ranks would be forced to flee. It marked the end of a very long era for the Vienna Philharmonic and the last time Mahler would be performed by the orchestra he conducted until after the war.


http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/musreich.htm

http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/arts/musDegen.htm


----------

