Okay, raise your hand if you have ever stayed up til midnight to attend the premiere showing of a new film ? extra points if you attended in costume as a Hogwarts student! Well, opera fans are no slouches, either. On December 31, 1913, Wagner fanatics arrived at the opera house in Budapest in time to attend a performance of Wagner?s five-hour opera Parsifal that began at one minute after midnight!

January 1, 1914 was the date on which the official copyright protection for Wagner?s last opera ran out. Before then, staged performances of Parsifal were forbidden to take place anywhere else than Wagner?s own festival theater in Bayreuth, Germany.

Parsifal had premiered there in 1882, but since international copyright laws proved unenforceable in many countries, some opera companies just ignored them. The Met in New York, for example, extensively renovated its stage machinery for the sole purpose of staging Parsifal on Christmas Eve in 1903, and there were also pirated pre-1914 performances in Canada, the Netherlands, Monaco, and Switzerland.

One interesting note about that midnight Parsifal in Budapest ? the conductor was 25-year-old musical wizard Fritz Reiner, who would eventually be waving his wand ? okay, his baton ? to lead the Chicago Symphony.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Parsifal excerpts; Welsh National Opera Chorus and Orchestra; Reginald Goodall, conductor; EMI 65665

On New Year?s Eve, 1948, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the first performance of the Symphony No. 5 by the American composer George Antheil. Now, in his youth, Antheil was something of a wild man, composing a Ballet Mechanicque for a percussion ensemble that included electric bells, sirens and airplane propellers. It earned him a reputation, and Antheil titled his colorful 1945 autobiography what many called him: The Bad Boy of Music.

But the great Depression and World War II changed Antheil?s attitude. Rather than write for small, avant-garde audiences, Antheil found work in Hollywood, with enough time left over for an occasional concert work, such as his Symphony No. 5. In program notes for the premiere, Antheil wrote: ?The object of my creative work is to disassociate myself from the passé modern schools and create a music for myself and those around me which has no fear of developed melody, tonality, or understandable forms.?

Contemporary critics were not impressed. One called Antheil?s new Symphony ?nothing more than motion-picture music of a very common brand? and another lamented its ?triviality and lack of originality,? suggesting it sounded like warmed-over Prokofiev. The year 2000 marked the centennial of Antheil?s birth, and only now, after years of neglect, both Antheil?s radical scores from the 1920s and his more conservative work from the 1940s is being performed, recorded and re-appraised.

George Antheil (1900-1959): Symphony No. 5 (Joyous); Frankfurt Radio Symphony; Hugh Wolff, conductor; CPO 999 706

On this date in 1905, Austro-Hungarian composer Franz Lehár conducted the first performance of his new operetta, The Merry Widow. He was sure it would be a success, but others did not share his confidence. The show?s librettist, lawyer in tow, urged him to cancel the premiere, and the nervous theater manager banned Viennese reporters from dress rehearsals, fearing bad advance press.

After a lukewarm debut at Vienna?s Theater an der Wien, The Merry Widow moved to a smaller, suburban theater, where it suddenly caught on. Within a year it had become a sensational hit throughout Europe.

Lehár?s contemporary, Gustav Mahler, was a Merry Widow fan, although he sent his wife, Alma, to buy the music rather than risk the embarrassment of having the director of Vienna?s Imperial Opera House seen buying such a shamelessly ?pop? score.

Ironically, another great fan of Lehár?s music was Adolf Hitler. Despite the fact that his wife and many of his professional associates were Jewish, his music continued to be performed in Nazi Germany. He was 68 when Austria became part of the German Reich, and continued to conduct in Vienna and Berlin.

Lehár?s family was spared, but many of his former associates were forced into exile. Others were not so lucky: In 1942, Louis Treumann, who first sang The Merry Widow Waltz at the 1905 premiere in Vienna, died in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt.

Franz Lehár (1870-1948): The Merry Widow excerpts; Budapest Philharmonic; Janos Sandor, conductor; Laserlight 15046

While hardly twins, the String Quartets of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are often linked in the minds of music lovers and record companies. Admired today for their grace and sheer beauty, back when these quartets were first performed in Paris, reactions were quite different.

Debussy?s work premiered on today?s date in 1893, played by the Ysaÿe Quartet. One critic wrote the music was ?strange and bizarre, with too many echoes of the streets of Cairo and the gamelan.? The gamelan reference was a dig at Debussy?s enthusiasm for the Indonesian bronze gong ensemble that he ? and many Europeans ? heard for the first time at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which bought musical performers from around the globe to that city.

Ravel completed his quartet ten years after Debussy?s. It?s dedicated to his teacher Gabriel Fauré, and was first played by the Heymann Quartet on March 5, 1904. Ravel submitted it to both the Prix de Rome and the Conservatoire de Paris. It was rejected by both institutions, and Fauré described the quartet?s last movement as ?stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure.?

Now if Debussy were a modern-day American, he might have sent Ravel a note saying: ?I feel your pain? or ?Been there, done that? ? but what he actually wrote to Ravel was: ?In the name of the gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note you have written in your quartet!?

And you know what? Debussy was right.

On today?s date in 1910, the Metropolitan Opera premiered a new opera by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck, already famous for his opera Hansel and Gretel. This new opera was also a fairytale and titled Königskinder or The Royal Children.

The female lead role of the Goose Girl was sung by Geraldine Farrar, admired back then for both her vocal and physical beauty. Farrar wasn?t scared of geese, either. She convinced both Humperdinck and Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met?s manager, to add a touch of verismo to the staging.

In her autobiography, Farrar writes: ?Humperdinck was not a little taken aback when I mentioned that I intended having live geese which were to move naturally and unconfined about the stage ? The conductor was much perturbed and objected to the noise and confusion they might create; but Mr. Gatti was resigned to my whim ? So with the help of ? the ?boys? behind the stage I had as pretty a flock of birds as one could find on any farm. When the curtain rose upon that idyllic forest scene, with the goose girl in the grass, the geese unconcernedly picking their way about, now and again spreading snowy wings, unafraid, the [audience] was simply delighted and applauded long and vigorously.?

Unlike Hansel and Gretel, Königskinder had an unhappy fairy-tale ending, and despite some really lovely music, it?s seldom staged these days ? with or without live geese.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921): Koenigskinder Excerpts

In the hands of a great performer, the violin can sing with the personality and intensity of a great opera singer. Pyrotechnics may dazzle, but nothing moves an audience as much as when a great violinist ?sings? through his instrument.

On today's date in 1896, a French audience in Nancy must has been so moved when great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe gave the first performance of this music: the Poème for Violin and Orchestra by Ernest Chausson. In addition to famous artists like Manet and Degas, Chausson counted among his friends many of the great musicians of his day, including Ysäye.

Although they admired his work, Chausson was not always appreciated by the public. But when Ysaÿe premiered Chausson?s Poème in Paris in 1897, the applause went on and on. Used to just the opposite reaction, Chausson was stunned by his success, and, while thanking Ysaye profusely, kept repeating to himself: ?I just can?t believe it!?

Modern-day violinist Joshua Bell was the inspiration for this songful contemporary work by Aaron Jay Kernis. Air for Violin was originally composed for violin and piano, and premiered in 1995 by Bell. He recorded it the following year with the Minnesota Orchestra.

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) Poème; Isaac Stern, violin; Orchestre de Paris; Daniel Barenboim, conductor. CBS/Sony 64501

Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960) Air for Violin; Minnesota Orchestra; Joshua Bell, violin; David Zinman, conductor. Argo 460 226

On this day in 1926, Walter Damrosch conducted the New York Symphony in the first performance of the last major orchestral work of Finnish composer Jean Sibelius ? his symphonic tone poem Tapiola. The title refers to an ancient Finnish forest god, Tapio, and the music suggests an ancient mystery culminating in a burst of terrifying savagery.

After receiving the score, Damrosch wrote this note of appreciation to the composer: ?No one but a Norseman could have written this work. We were all enthralled by the dark pine forests and the shadowy gods and wood nymphs who dwell therein. The coda with its icy winds sweeping through the forest made us shiver.? Today the commission fee Damrosch paid Sibelius for this orchestral masterpiece makes us shiver: Sibelius was paid only $400.

At this point in his career, Sibelius was afflicted by intense self-doubt. He wrote in his diary: ?I have suffered because of Tapiola ? was I really cut out for this sort of thing? Going downhill. Can?t be alone. Drinking whiskey. Physically not strong enough for all this??

For the next 30 years and more, Sibelius lived in retirement, drinking heavily, and though rumors persisted that he was still writing music, no scores were discovered after his death.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957): Tapiola; Helsinki Philharmonic; Paavo Berglund, conductor; EMI 68646

On today?s date in 1937, as a Christmas gift to the nation, the NBC radio network broadcast the first NBC Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The orchestra had been specifically created to lure the famous Italian conductor back to America.

For the first selection on his first concert, Toscanini chose what was then an obscure piece an obscure Italian composer named Antonio Vivaldi: his Concerto Grosso No. 11, to be exact.

These days we are used to hearing Baroque music in ?historically informed performances,? ?hip? for short, and often played on period instruments. By those standards, Toscanini?s Vivaldi might be described as ?pre-historic,? but in 1937 it must have seemed a shockingly hip selection: a bracing, bold shot of unfamiliar Baroque music by a composer rarely ? if ever ? heard on a symphony concert.

In fact, one might argue that Toscanini was trying to be ?historically informed,? since he probably used a score prepared by the Italian musicologist and composer Gian Francesco Malipiero, based on manuscripts and original editions of Vivaldi?s music found in the library of the Liceo Musicale in Venice, where Malipiero taught in the 1930s and Vivaldi lived in the 1730s.

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741): Concerto Grosso No. 11; NBC Symphony; Arturo Toscanini, conductor (r. Dec. 25, 1937)

Okay, how?s this for a movie scene worthy of Doctor Zhivago:

It?s October 1917 and Lenin has overthrown the Tsarist government of Russia. A composer and virtuoso pianist can hear gunfire from his apartment as he works and decides that his family must flee their homeland. He receives an offer for recital appearances in Scandinavia and uses the offer as a pretext to escape Russia. But first, the family must face a dangerous journey to Finland in trains crowded with terrified passengers.

At the Finnish border, a music-loving Bolshevik guard recognizes the famous artist and allows the family safe passage. But wait ? there are no more trains running, so they must travel to Helsinki in an open peasant sleigh during a raging blizzard. They arrive in Stockholm on Christmas Eve, and one year later the composer and his family are able to book passage from Oslo to New York.

If that sounds perhaps a bit too melodramatic, consider that scenario is exactly what happened to Sergei Rachmaninoff, his wife, and two daughters.

In America, Rachmaninoff became a star pianist, playing 92 concerts at Carnegie Hall between 1918 and 1943. He continued to compose, but lamented, ?When I lost my homeland, I lost myself as well ? I have no will to create without ? Russian soil under my feet.? He would complete only six more major works during his 25 years in America.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Piano Concerto No. 1; Krystian Zimerman, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Seiji Ozawa, conductor; DG 4796868

On today?s date in 1893, the opera Hansel and Gretel by 39-year-old German composer Engelbert Humperdinck received its premiere performance at the Court Theater of Weimar. It was conducted by a promising 29-year-old composer by the name of Richard Strauss.

It quickly became an international hit, playing to packed houses in Berlin, Vienna and London. Gustav Mahler, head of the Hamburg Opera at the time, declared it a masterpiece, and parents on several continents breathed a sigh of relief: here was an opera without the sex and violence so fashionable in the media ? even back in 1893! Hansel and Gretel quickly became a Christmastime tradition ? even though there?s nothing in it particular Christmassy apart from children, sugary things to eat, and the appearance of an angel or two.

Initially, Humperdinck didn?t even want to write anything as silly as an opera on Hansel and Gretel. He was a serious young protégé of Richard Wagner who had helped copy the orchestral parts for Wagner?s final opera, Parsifal.

It was his sister who talked him in to writing some music for a children?s play she had prepared on the familiar fairytale by the Brothers Grimm. At some point, Humperdinck must have realized he not only could ? but should ? work his sister?s play into a full-blown opera, which would blend Wagner?s complex orchestral technique with a simple but universally appealing story that would charm old and young alike.

Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921): Hansel and Gretel Suite; Royal Philharmonic; Rudolf Kempe, conductor; EMI 68736

Opera fanatics are a passionate lot. ?It?s an addiction,? they say. ?Something to die for.?

Now, if opera is an addiction, then today?s date marks the birthdate of an Italian composer who might be described as the ultimate operatic gateway drug. We?re talking, of course, about Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, who was born in Lucca, in 1858.

Puccini is the composer of three of the most popular operas ever written: La Bohème (in 1896), Tosca (in 1900), and Madama Butterfly (in 1904).

Puccini lived and worked during the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, and his music brilliantly blended the gorgeous melodies of the 19th century Italian bel canto tradition with the raw, often brutal dramatics of the emerging verismo, or ?realism? theatrics of the 20th century.

Unlike 19th century operas, when time stands still while a soprano sings how happy (or miserable) she is, in Puccini?s operas time always moves on, often relentlessly as the action hurls toward the, usually, unhappy ending, when the soprano dies of consumption, throws herself off a castle tower, or dies by ritual suicide with a Japanese dagger.

After all, Puccini?s operas really are ?something to die for.?

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): ?Pinkerton?s Farewell? and ?The Death Of Butterfly? from Madama Butterfly; Kostelanetz Orchestra; Andre Kostelanetz, conductor; Columbia MDK 46285

In all, American composer David Diamond wrote 11 symphonies, spanning some 50 years of his professional career. The last dates from 1991, and the first from 1940, completed after his return from studies in Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War II.

Diamond?s Symphony No. 1 was premiered on today?s date in 1941 by the New York Philharmonic led by famous Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos. Despite winning awards and positive comments from fellow composers ranging from Virgil Thomson to Arnold Schoenberg, for years Diamond struggled to make ends meet by playing violin in various New York City theater pit bands. More than one fellowship grant, however, enabled him to live abroad for extended stays, where, he said:

?I can make my income last and live extremely well with my own villa and garden at a cost that would provide a hole-in-the-wall, coldwater flat in America ? There is a spiritual nourishment, too, in that cradle of serious music [and] quiet for concentration that could never be found in an American city.?

Defending his more traditional approach, Diamond wrote: ?It is my strong feeling that a romantically inspired contemporary music, tempered by reinvigorated classical technical formulas, is the way out of the present period of creativity chaos in music ? To me, the romantic spirit in music is important because it is timeless.?

David Diamond (1915-2005): Symphony No. 1; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3119

In the spring of 1775, shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, and the sparks of the American Revolution burst into flames at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Far away in Salzburg, Austria, a 19-year-old composer named Wolfgang Mozart was spending most of that year composing five violin concertos. The fifth, in A major, was completed on this day in 1775. At the time, Mozart was concertmaster of the orchestra in the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Archbishops don?t have their own orchestras now, but they did then ? at least in Europe, if not in the American colonies.

A century and a half later, America was celebrating its sesquicentennial, and the magazine Musical America offered a prize of $3,000 for the best symphonic work on an American theme. The prize was awarded unanimously to Ernest Bloch, a Swiss-born composer who had arrived in this country only a decade before. But already, sailing into the harbor of New York, he had conceived of a large patriotic composition. Several years later, it took shape in three movements as America: An Epic Rhapsody for Orchestra.

It premiered in New York on today?s date in 1928, with simultaneous performances the next day in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Fifteen other orchestras programmed it within a year. Curiously, although Bloch remains a highly respected composer, his America Rhapsody from 1928 is seldom performed today.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Violin Concerto No. 5; Jean-Jacques Kantorow, violin; Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Leopold Hager, conductor; Denon 7504

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959): America: An Epic Rhapsody; Seattle Symphony; Gerard Schwarz, conductor; Delos 3135

The Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange opened in New York City on this date in 1971. The music was composed, and in some cases re-composed, by Wendy Carlos. As in his earlier hit, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick used classical music. This time, however, in keeping with the film?s futuristic storyline, the classics were adapted and arranged for Moog synthesizer by Wendy Carlos. The main title music, which we?re sampling, was Purcell?s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary.

Carlos had just read the Anthony Burgess novel, A Clockwork Orange, when she saw a notice in the New York Times that Kubrick was at work filming it. She immediately airmailed Kubrick two Moog synthesizer pieces, one original and one a classical arrangement. Kubrick wrote back, inviting her to London to talk, and the rest is history.

Wendy Carlos had become an international celebrity with her earlier album Switched-On Bach, consisting of her Bach arrangements for synthesizer. It became the first classical recording ever to be certified platinum. Musical genius pianist Glenn Gould, whose own recording of Bach?s Goldberg Variations was one of the biggest sellers of all time, said: ?Carlos? realization of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 is, to put it bluntly, the finest performance of any of the Brandenburgs ? live, canned, or intuited ? I?ve ever heard.?

Henry Purcell (arr. Wendy Carlos): Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary; Wendy Carlos, synthesizers Eastside; Digital 81362

J.S. Bach (arr. Wendy Carlos): Brandenburg Concerto No. 4; Wendy Carlos, synthesizers; CBS/Sony 42309

It?s strange to read the doubts Tchaikovsky expressed in letters about many of his greatest musical works, which he first would dismiss as failures, only to change his mind completely a few weeks later. Take, for example, his ballet The Nutcracker, which had its premiere performance on this day in 1892 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky described working on the ballet as a ?dread-inspiring, feverish nightmare, so abominable that I don't think I have the strength to put it into words.? At the time, Tchaikovsky was much more optimistic about an opera he was writing, Yolanta, only to abruptly changed his mind, writing ?Now I think that the ballet is good and the opera nothing special.? This time, Tchaikovsky got it right ? although initially the opera did prove more popular than the ballet.

Another ? and deliberately nightmarish ? Russian composition had its first performance on this same day 70 years later. This was the Symphony No. 13 by Dmitri Shostakovich, subtitled Babi Yar, based on poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This choral symphony was first heard on today?s date in 1962 at the Moscow Conservatory, but was quickly banned by the Soviet authorities. Its title poem, Babi Yar, called attention to Soviet indifference to the Holocaust and persistent anti-Semitism in Soviet society. Yevtushenko later softened these lines so the symphony could be performed in the U.S.S.R.

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): The Nutcracker Ballet; Kirov Orchestra; Valery Gergiev, conductor; Philips 462 114

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar); Nicola Ghiuselev, bass; Choral Arts Society of Washington; National Symphony; Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor; Erato 85529

There?s an old joke that Schubert wrote two symphonies: one unfinished, and the other endless ? the reference being to Schubert?s Unfinished Symphony which lasts about 20 minutes, and his Great Symphony, which can run about an hour in performance.

It was Antonio Salieri, one of Schubert?s composition teachers in Vienna, who encouraged the young composer to date his manuscripts, so we know the Unfinished Symphony was written in 1822. It wasn't performed in public, however, until December 17th, 1865 ? 43 years later. The manuscript was known to exist, but no one bothered much about it until Josef von Herbeck tracked it down and conducted its first performance in Vienna.

At its premiere, Herbeck added the last movement of Schubert?s Symphony No. 3 as a kind of makeshift finale. Many others have tried to finish the Unfinished Symphony, but more often than not, it is performed as an incomplete, yet oddly satisfying, work.

Icelandic composer Jon Leifs, who died in 1968, apparently worried that he might leave some unfinished orchestral score behind. Therefore, he composed not one but two works he titled Finale. These were intended as a kind of ?musical insurance policy.? To each score, Leifs attached a note suggesting that if he died and left behind any unfinished orchestral projects, either of these two Finales could be used.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Symphony No. 9; Berlin Philharmonic; Karl Böhm, conductor; DG 419 318

Jón Leifs (1899-1968): Fine I and Fine II; Iceland Symphony; Petri Sakari, conductor; Chandos 9433

He was dubbed the French Beethoven, and like Ludwig van, was famous as both a composer and a pianist. Camille Saint-Saëns was born in Paris in 1835, and died on today?s date, at 86, in 1921.

The death date seems rather fitting, in a macabre sort of way, since December 16 is also the date we celebrate as Beethoven?s birthday. And imagine, if you will, the 10-year-old Saint-Saëns making his formal debut as a pianist at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, first performing a concerto by Beethoven, then, as an encore, offering to play any one of Beethoven?s 32 piano sonatas ? from memory!

Saint-Saëns? keyboard skills were legendary. An early admirer of Wagner, he once amazed that composer by playing entire scores of his operas at sight. Berlioz, another admirer, once quipped he ?knows everything but lacks inexperience.?

In addition to music, Saint-Saëns was fascinated by mathematics, astronomy, and the natural sciences. As a young boy he collected fossils that he dug out himself from the stone quarries at Meudon. Maybe that experience inspired him years later to add a movement titled Fossils to his Carnival of the Animals, a chamber work he wrote as a private joke in 1886. Saint-Saëns forbade its publication during his lifetime, and probably would have been appalled that this flippant work ? and not his more serious symphonies or sonatas ? has become his best-known and best-loved work.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Variations on a theme of Beethoven Philippe Corre and Edouard Exerjean, pianos Pierre Verany 790041

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) Fossils, from Carnival of the Animals Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, pianos; Markus Steckeler, xylophone; ensemble Philips 446557

On today?s date in 1893, Anton Seidl conducted the New York Philharmonic in the first performance of Antonín Dvo?ák's Symphony No. 9 (From the New World). This was an afternoon concert, meant as a public dress rehearsal for the work?s official premiere the following evening.

Among the December 15 audience was Dvo?ák's eight-year old son, Otakar, who had a special interest in the success of his father's new symphony. In the preceding weeks, Otakar had accompanied his father to a New York café, where Dvo?ák met Anton Seidl to go over the new score. Young Otakar amused himself at a nearby toyshop, where a seven-foot long model of the ocean liner Majestic was on display, complete with its own miniature steam-chamber and working propellers. It cost a whopping $45 ? a huge amount of money in those days, and the answer from papa was always: NO!

Seeing that the boy?s heart was set on having the toy, Anton Seidl suggested to Otakar that he wait until after the premiere and then ask his father again. Seidl told Otakar that if all went well at the premiere, Dvo?ák would be in a generous mood. The premiere was a great success, and, as Otakar recalled: ?When Seidl offered to pay half the cost of the Majestic, Father could not say no. So that is how the three of us celebrated the success of the first performance of the New World Symphony.?

Antonin Dvo?ák (1841-1904): Symphony No. 9 (From the New World); New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 73244

From its founding in 1986 the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet has both commissioned new works and arranged old ones for their ensemble of four virtuoso guitarists. On today?s date in 2001, the quartet premiered a new commission: Ghetto Strings, a suite of four pieces written by Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain.

Daniel Bernard Roumain ? or DBR as he likes to be called ? was born in Skokie, Illinois, but grew up in Southern Florida, surrounded by music from Latin communities ? the Bahamas, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic ? as well as his own family?s Haitian music. He took up violin at 5, and says he absorbed a variety of classical and contemporary music. In junior high, he formed his own rock and hip-hop band and in high school played in a jazz orchestra which brought in guests like Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Charles. He later pursued formal musical studies with mentors William Bolcom and Michael Daugherty, earning both his masters and doctoral degrees.

The four movements of his Ghetto Strings evoke four places Roumain has called home at various points in his life: Harlem, Detroit, Liberty City in Miami and Haiti.

Daniel Bernard Roumain (b. 1970): Haiti from Ghetto Strings; Minneapolis Guitar Quartet; innova CD 858

On today?s date in 1895, Gustav Mahler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in the first complete performance of his own Symphony No. 2.

Mahler?s Symphony No. 2 is often called the Resurrection Symphony, as the work includes a choral setting of the Resurrection Ode by 18th-century German poet Klopstock, but Mahler himself gave his symphony no such title. In a letter to his wife, Mahler confided that his Symphony No. 2 ?was so much all of a piece that it can no more be explained than the world itself.?

And like the world, music is often full of surprising transitions!

American composer Paul Schoenfield quoted a dramatic passage of Mahler?s Symphony No. 2 in his concerto for piccolo trumpet and orchestra, Vaudeville.

In live performances, the sudden juxtaposition of Mahler and the Brazilian tune Tico-Tico always gets a laugh ? which is just what Schoenfield intended.

?I often suffer from depression, and once, when I was feeling pretty low, a friend of mind suggested I try writing something happy and upbeat to see if that would help. Vaudeville was the result. I don?t know if it helped me, but people say when they hear it, it makes them feel better. The music of other composers I respect has that effect on me, and I?m glad if Vaudeville has that effect on others,? Schoenfield said.

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911): Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection); London Symphony; Gilbert Kaplan, conductor; Conifer 51337

Paul Schoenfield (1947-2024): Vaudeville; New World Symphony; John Nelson, conductor; Argo 440 212

La Valse ? one of the most popular orchestral works by Maurice Ravel ? was performed for the first time this day in 1920 by the Lamoureux Orchestra in Paris, conducted by Camille Chevillard. Ravel?s score was subtitled a ?choreographic poem for orchestra in the tempo of the Viennese waltz.?

La Valse is a far more Impressionistic work than any of the waltzes by the Strauss Family. It is certainly darker. Ravel said, ?I had intended this work to be a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, with which was associated in my imagination an impression of a fantastic and fatal kind of Dervish?s dance.?

La Valse was written for the great ballet impresario Serge Diagalev, who apparently found it undanceable, and his failure to stage La Valse caused a serious rift in his friendship with Ravel.

Contemporary composer Judith Lang Zaimont is an unabashed Ravel enthusiast ? ?Ravel?s music defines ?gorgeous,?? she said. ?It?s beguiling to the ear, and sensuous. His textures are built in thin layers, like a Napoleon pastry, and his intricate surfaces ? beautifully worked-out ? shine and fascinate.?

Zaimont should know. For many years she taught composition at the University of Minnesota, and her own solo piano, chamber and orchestra works are increasingly finding their way into concert halls and onto compact disc.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): La Valse; Boston Symphony; Charles Munch, conductor; RCA 6522

Judith Lang Zaimont (b. 1945): Symphony No. 1; Czech Radio Symphony; Leos Svarovsky, conductor; Arabesque 6742

On this day in 1952, thirty-one theaters nationwide offered the first pay-per view Met opera telecast. This was a regularly-scheduled performance of Bizet?s Carmen broadcast live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, featuring Risë Stevens in the title role and Fritz Reiner conducting. The performance was relayed to the theaters by means of a closed TV circuit.*

Beginning in 1948, the Metropolitan Opera had experimented with live telecasts of their opening night performances, but relatively few people in the U.S. owned TV sets at the time. By 1952, most American households had TVs, but the Met?s manager, Rudolf Bing, was dead-set against any further free telecasts. The 1952 pay-per-view experiment was not successful, and it wasn't until 1976 ? after Bing had resigned ? that live telecasts of Metropolitan Opera performances resumed on public television.

The most successful of all commercial telecasts of a live opera performance occurred in 1951, when, on Christmas Eve that year, NBC-TV broadcast Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti on Christmas. NBC?s black-and-white kinescope recording of that premiere performance was broadcast annually for a number of years ? until it was accidentally erased by a network employee.** Although Amahl is no longer an annual visitor to television, it is still staged this time of year by amateur and professional opera companies around the world.

*Currently the Metropolitan Opera offers a series of live opera performances transmitted in high-definition video via satellite from Lincoln Center in New York City to select venues, primarily movie theaters, in the United States and other parts of the world. The first transmission was of a condensed English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute on December 30, 2006.

**One surviving copy of the original kinescope did surface in a California archive, and was shown at broadcast museums on both coasts in 2001 to celebrate the work's 50th anniversary.

Georges Bizet (1838-1875): Carmen Suite No. 1; Orchestre National de France; Seiji Ozawa, conductor; EMI 63898

Giancarlo Menotti (1911-2007): March from Amahl and the Night Visitors; New Zealand Symphony; Andrew Schenck, conductor; Koch 7005

Today's date marks the birthday anniversary of Morton Gould, a quintessentially American composer, conductor and advocate for music, who was born in Richmond Hill, New York, on today?s date in 1913.

A child prodigy, he published his first work of music at the tender age of six. His teenage years coincided with the Great Depression, and Gould played piano for New York movie theaters and vaudeville acts. When Radio City Music Hall opened, Gould was hired as its staff pianist.

By the late 1930s, he was conducting and arranging orchestral programs for radio networks, and by the 1940s was writing scores for Hollywood films and Broadway shows. A decade or so later, he was writing music for TV. Gould became a favorite conductor for RCA recording sessions of both popular and classical music on LP.

All his life, Gould composed original, well-crafted works that gracefully incorporated American sounds ranging from spirituals to tap-dancing. One of these, for a singing fire department, he titled ? with a sly wink at his colleague Aaron Copland ? Hosedown.

Gould was a serious composer with a healthy sense of humor and a keen sense of the business of music. He served for many decades as the president of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), lobbying hard for the intellectual property rights of composers in the age of the Internet.

Gould died in 1996 at the newly-opened Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida, where he was invited to serve as its first resident guest composer.

Morton Gould (1913-1996): Spirituals for Strings; London Philharmonic; Kenneth Klein, conductor; EMI 49462

These days, no one is surprised if a popular film generates a series of sequels or even prequels, but back in the 1830s the idea of a composer coming up with a sequel to a symphony must have seemed a little odd. But that odd idea did pop into the head of French composer Hector Berlioz.

In 1830, Berlioz had a huge hit with his Symphonie Fantastique. That Fantastic Symphony told a story through music, based on the composer?s own real-life, unrequited love for a British Shakespearian actress. The story ends badly, with our hero trying to end it all with a dose of opium, which, while not killing him, does produce, well, ?fantastic? nightmares in which he is condemned to death for killing his beloved who reappears at a grotesque witches? sabbath.

That seems a hard act to follow, but two years later, Berlioz produced a musical sequel: Lelio, or the Return to Life, which premiered in Paris on today?s date in 1832. In this, our hero awakes from his drug-induced nightmare, and, with a little help from Shakespeare and a kind of 10-step arts-based recovery program, rededicates his life to music.

Berlioz intended the original and the sequel to be performed together as a kind of double-feature. Alas, while audiences thrill to the lurid Symphonie Fantastique, they tend to drift during the admirable, but rather boring rehab sequel, which is rarely performed.

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Fantasy on Shakespeare?s ?The Tempest? from Lelio London Symphony; Pierre Boulez, conductor; Sony 64103

On this date in 1813, Beethoven?s Symphony No. 7 was played for the first time in Vienna. The occasion was a benefit concert in honor of the Austrian and Bavarian soldiers who had died fighting Napoleon, with the concert's proceeds donated to their widows and orphans.

At its first rehearsal, some of the musicians found the part writing of the new work intimidating. A friend of Beethoven?s who sat in on rehearsals later recalled: ?the violin players refused to play a passage and rebuked [Beethoven] for writing difficulties that were incapable of performance. But Beethoven begged the gentlemen to take the parts home with them. If they were to practice it at home it would surely go. The next day the passage went excellently, and the gentlemen themselves seemed to rejoice that they had given Beethoven such pleasure.? The slow movement of Beethoven?s symphony so pleased the Viennese audience at its premiere that it had to be encored.

On today?s date in 1980, a private tragedy also prompted music. On December 8 that year, ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City. American composer Aaron Jay Kernis was then a student at the Manhattan School of Music, living not far from where Lennon was slain. The death moved Kernis to reshape elements of Lennon?s song ?Imagine? into an altogether new work for cello and piano: Meditation (in memory of John Lennon).

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 7; Vienna Philharmonic; Carlos Kleiber, conductor; DG 447 400

Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960): Meditation (in memory of John Lennon); Eberli Ensemble; Phoenix 142

Maybe you?re one of those die-hard classical music fans who records your favorite orchestra?s radio broadcasts. Starting in the 1950s, home tape recorders made it easy to record off the air, and the arrival of cassette recorders in the 1960s made it more affordable.

But in the 1930s and 40s, you had to be pretty darn wealthy to afford home recording equipment, which was bulky and only able to record about 14 minutes at a time on to 16-inch vinyl discs. One such home recordist was Dr. Edwin L. Gardner of Minneapolis, who, on today?s date in 1941 was recording a Sunday afternoon New York Philharmonic broadcast of the first symphony by Shostakovich and the second piano concerto by Brahms.

Dr. Gardner was probably annoyed by the first news flash which interrupted the Shostakovich symphony: a U.S. Army transport carrying lumber had been torpedoed 1300 miles west of San Francisco. But Gardner kept recording, even during the preempted intermission of the Philharmonic broadcast devoted to the first reports of the devastating Japanese attack at the U.S. Navy?s base in Pearl Harbor.

And so, in addition to capturing most of the Shostakovich and Brahms he set out to record, Dr. Gardner also captured in real time a dramatic moment in American history.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor; Sony 88697683652

Today marks the anniversary of the birth of American composer and pianist Dave Brubeck. Born in Concord, California on December 6, 1920, he would become one of the most famous jazz performers of our time ? and one of the most successful at fusing elements of jazz and classical music.

Brubeck studied with Schoenberg and Milhaud, and in the late 1940s and ?50s formed a jazz quartet incorporating Baroque-style counterpoint and unusual time signatures into a style that came to be known as ?West Coast? or ?cool? jazz, culminating in the 1960 release of a landmark jazz album for Columbia Records, Time Out. This album produced two Hit Parade singles: Blue Rondo à la Turk and Take Five. Ironically, he had to fight to convince Columbia to release an album composed totally of original material with no familiar standards to help sales!

In addition to works for chamber-sized jazz combos, Brubeck has written a number of large-scale sacred works, among them a 1975 Christmas Choral Pageant, La Fiesta de la Posada, or, The Festival of the Inn.

Originally written to celebrate the restoration of a Spanish mission in California, it wound up being premiered in Hawaii by the Honolulu Symphony. Since its premiere, La Fiesta de la Posada has been performed by both professional and amateur ensembles, ranging from symphony orchestras to mariachi bands. Its premiere recording was made by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Dale Warland Singers, with Dennis Russell Davies conducting.

Dave Brubeck (1920-2012): Blue Rondo a la Turk; The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Columbia 40585

Dave Brubeck: La Fiesta del Posada; Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; Columbia Legacy 64669

So what do you call a setting of the Latin mass that is not in Latin? Well, if you?re Moravian-born composer Leos? Jana?c?ek, you call it Glagolitic, since your Mass sets an Old Church Slavonic text written down in a script called that.

The idea came from a clerical friend who complained about the lack of original religious music in Czechoslovakia and suggested Jana?c?ek?s do something about it. His Glagolitic Mass premiered in Brno on today?s date in 1927. One reviewer wrote it was ?a marvelous religious work of an old composer? ? to which Janacek snapped back: ?I am not old. And I am certainly not religious!?

Now, people do say ?you?re only as old as you feel,? and 73-year old Jana?c?ek had for many years been in love with a much younger woman who inspired his best works, and rather than any religious convictions, Janacek told another reporter that the piece was in fact jump-started by an electrical storm he witnessed and described as follows: ?It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it ? I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ?Gospodi pomiluj? [Love have mercy] and nothing more than the joyous shout ?Slava, Slava!? [Glory].?

Leo? Jana?c?ek (1854-1928): Glagolitic Mass; Bavarian Radio Chorus and Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor; DG 429182

Tchaikovsky?s Violin Concerto was first performed on today?s date in 1881. The premiere took place in Vienna with Adolf Brodsky the violin soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic led by Hans Richter. It was not a big hit.

The next day, the conservative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: ?The violin is no longer played: it is tugged about, torn, beaten black and blue.? According to Hanslick, the concerto?s finale: ?transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian festival. We see gross and savage faces, hear crude curses, and smell the booze ? Tchaikovsky?s Concerto confronts us for the first time with the hideous idea that there may be musical compositions whose stink one can hear.?

Ouch! Tchaikovsky?s score survived the bad review, but a more recent American work suffered a far unkinder cut. The original film score for the 1968 blockbuster movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey was written by Alex North, who was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on today's date in 1910. Director Stanley Kubrick hired North to write the music for 2001, but Kubrick ultimately decided to use pre-recorded classical and contemporary music instead.

When North attended the New York premiere of 2001, he was devastated that not one minute of the music he had written was included in the final edit.

Believe it or not, no one had informed him in advance!

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Violin Concerto; Itzhak Perlman, violin; London Symphony; Alfred Wallenstein, conductor; Chesky 12

Alex North (1910-1991): Unused Opening Theme for 2001: A Space Odyssey; National Philharmonic; Jerry Goldsmith, conductor; Varese Sarabande 66225

It was wet and cold in New York on today?s date in 1925, but a curious crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for a concert by the New York Symphony. Walter Damrosch was to conduct the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto by George Gershwin, who would also be the soloist.

The audience reacted with cheers and bravos, but the reviews were mixed: ?Conventional, trite ... [and] a little dull? was the verdict of one; but another was enthusiastic, suggesting: ?Of all those writing the music of today, [Gershwin] alone actually expresses US.? In the America of 1925, that ?us? would have included the owners of speakeasies, raccoon coats, and Stutz Bearcat roadsters. It was the Jazz Age ? an era magically captured in F. Scott Fitzgerald?s novel The Great Gatsby.

Seventy-four years later, in December of 1999, John Harbison?s opera based on The Great Gatsby premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, playing to sold-out houses. Once again, audiences were enthusiastic ? the critics less so.

To capture the mood of the 1920s, Harbison had composed a number of original songs in Jazz-Age style, which he incorporated as themes in his opera. These tunes have even been published as a separate Gatsby Songbook!

Imagine: a modern opera with tunes audiences can actually hum as they leave the theater! What will they think of next?

John Harbison (b. 1938): Remembering Gatsby Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor; Argo 444 454

George Gershwin (1898-1937): Piano Concerto; Peter Jablonski, piano; Royal Philharmonic; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor; London 430 542