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Franz Schubert / Carol Channing

On this day in classical music: Austrian composer Franz Schubert was born near Vienna in 1797. Despite his extremely brief 32-year lifespan, Schubert composed an enormous body of music, including nine symphonies, 600 lieder, opera, chamber music and solo piano music. Liszt, Schumann, Brahms and Mendelssohn were staunch champions of Schubert’s music. Today, he’s considered one of the foremost composers of early Romantic period music. Listen to Alfred Brendel perform Schubert’s “Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkX4MyDeIqI

On this day in the musical theatre: Carol Channing was born in Seattle in 1921. Following studies at Vermont’s Bennington College, Channing headed to New York and subsequently landed a featured role in the musical revue “Lend an Ear.” Author Anita Loos caught a performance and picked Channing to create the role of Lorelei Lee in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” The Jule Styne score provided Channing with her signature tune, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Channing’s greatest role, and one she performed more than 3,000 times, was that as Dolly Gallagher Levi in Jerry Herman’s “Hello, Dolly!” Herman had envisioned the part with Ethel Merman in mind, but when she turned down the role, Channing was cast. In spite of strong competition from Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl,” Channing won the 1964 Tony Award for best actress in a musical. In 1973, she toured in a revised version of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” called “Lorelei.” Among her costars was Oklahoman Tamara Long. Listen to Carol Channing perform the showstopping “Before the Parade Passes By” from “Hello, Dolly!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyUl0aYK8Ws

Musical musings: “Hello, Dolly!” is a musical comedy dream, with Carol Channing the girl of it. Almost literally it’s a dream, a drunken carnival, a happy nightmare, a wayward circus in which the mistress of ceremonies opens wide her big-as-millstone eyes, spreads her white-gloved arms in ecstatic abandon, trots out on a circular runway that surrounds the orchestra and proceeds to dance rings around the conductor. With hair like orange seafoam, a contralto like a horse’s neighing, and a confidential swagger that promises to baby-sit for the entire house, she fulfills for you a promise you made yourself as a boy: to see, someday, a musical comedy performer with all the blowzy glamour of the girls on the sheet music of 1916. – Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune

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Johannes Brahms / Wonderful Town

On this day in classical music: Johannes Brahms’ “Three Intermezzi, Op. 117,” were given their premiere in Vienna in 1893. These late works are part of a collection of works for piano that also includes the “Seven Fantasias, Op. 116,” the “Six Pieces, Op. 118” and “Four Pieces, Op. 119.” Together with the Op. 39 set of “Waltzes,” the “Eight Pieces, Op. 76” and the “Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79,” they form the bulk and musical brilliance of Brahms’ works for piano. Listen to Arthur Rubinstein perform the last of the “Three Intermezzi” in C-Sharp Minor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4WrtsUAv80

On this day in the musical theatre: The 2003 revival of Leonard Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town” closed on Broadway in 2005 after a run of 507 performances. Tony Award winner Donna Murphy headed the cast as Ruth Sherwood, a writer trying to find work in New York City after she and her sister Eileen left Ohio for the Big Apple. Bernstein’s score was upbeat and often jazzy, with witty lyrics provided by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The musical was based on the 1940 play “My Sister Eileen,” which in turn was inspired by a collection of short stories by Ruth McKenney. Watch Murphy and company perform the catchy “Swing” on the 2004 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbT4i8VMtOk

Musical musings: On your knees, citizens of Broadway. A superwoman walks among you. Having established herself as the first lady of musical tragedy — with Tony-winning performances in Stephen Sondheim’s “Passion” and a somber “King and I” — Donna Murphy has now crossed to the sunny side of the street. She makes it very clear, thank you, that this, too, is unconditionally her turf. At last a little happiness in a neighborhood that was starting to look like the Great Dark Way. In the revival of Leonard Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town,” which opened last night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, Ms. Murphy is giving one of the most dazzlingly accomplished comic performances that you’re ever likely to see in a musical. You would think it impossible for Ms. Murphy to top the number in which Ruth, sent to interview a fleet of Brazilian sailors, becomes the deliriously athletic leader of a conga line. But top it she does in the second act, when Ruth is taught by a chorus of cool downtowners how to speak the language of jazz. At first she’s stilted and fatally lacking in rhythm. But by magical degrees, her body becomes supple and her uptight alto shades into a Louis Armstrong rasp. Suddenly plain old Ruth from Ohio is the heppest, sexiest cat in Greenwich Village. And no matter how long you’ve lived in New York City, you start to see it with the eyes of a new arrival who believes anything is possible here. Ms. Murphy puts the essential wonder in “Wonderful Town.” In falling in love with her, you fall in love with Manhattan all over again. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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Sergei Prokofiev / Sweet Charity

On this day in classical music: Sergei Prokofiev’s “Scythian Suite” was given its premiere at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in 1916, with the composer conducting. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev, the ballet was written to a scenario by Russian poet Sergey Gorodetsky. After Diaghilev rejected the score, Prokofiev reworked the music into a suite for concert performance. Listen to Claudio Abbado and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra perform the opening movement, titled “Invocation to Veles and Ala.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb8MT370WAw

On this day in the musical theatre: “Sweet Charity” opened on Broadway in 1966. Featuring music by Cy Coleman and lyrics by Dorothy Fields, “Sweet Charity” told the story of one Charity Hope Valentine, a dance hall hostess who keeps falling in love with the wrong guys. Gwen Verdon originated the role of the girl with a heart of gold. Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the production which was based on Federico Fellini’s screenplay “Nights of Cabiria.” Watch Verdon perform an excerpt from the showstopping “If My Friends Could See Me Now” on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gibkynFPPS4

Musical musings: What director-choreographer Bob Fosse has done is to detail the hilarious and sometimes poignant adventures of Charity essentially in the crystal-clear language of the dance, individual and ensemble. The truth is that the red-headed, ball-bearing-jointed Verdon is always dancing, even when she’s walking. Dialogue becomes a mere accessory for Verdon, even though she speaks it well enough. She can say more with the casual pivoting of a knee than Webster ever catalogued. – Normal Nadel in the World Journal Tribune

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Aaron Copland / Miss Saigon

On this day in classical music: Aaron Copland’s “Quiet City” was given its premiere by the Little Symphony at New York City’s Town Hall in 1941. The work’s inspiration came from Irwin Shaw’s 1939 play, for which Copland wrote the music. While its orchestral version is the one most often heard today, Copland’s original scoring was for trumpet, saxophone, clarinets and piano. “Quiet City” is a melancholy tribute to New York City. Listen to Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia perform “Quiet City.” Andrea Lucchi is the trumpet soloist, with Mary Cotton playing the English Horn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu06sqSIRdE

On this day in the musical theatre: “Miss Saigon,” Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s follow up to their megahit “Les Miserables,” closed on Broadway after a run that approached 10 years. The story parallels that of Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly.” In the stage musical, an American GI falls in love with a Vietnamese bar girl. Listen to Jonathan Pryce perform “The Amercian Dream” on the 1991 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJx5XjB9tw 

Musical musings: For all that seems galling about “Miss Saigon” — and for all that is indeed simplistic, derivative and, at odd instances, laughable about it — this musical is a gripping entertainment of the old school (specifically, the Rodgers and Hammerstein East-meets-West school of “South Pacific” and “The King and I”). Among other pleasures, it offers lush melodies, spectacular performances by Mr. (Jonathan) Pryce, Miss (Lea) Salonga and the American actor Hinton Battle, and a good cry. Nor are its achievements divorced from its traumatic subject, as cynics might suspect. Without imparting one fresh or daring thought about the Vietnam War, the show still manages to plunge the audience back into the quagmire of a generation ago, stirring up feelings of anguish and rage that run even deeper than the controversies that attended “Miss Saigon” before its curtain went up. Yet the text is not the sum of a theatrical experience, and however sanitizing the words and corny the drama of “Miss Saigon,” the real impact of the musical goes well beyond any literal reading. America’s abandonment of its own ideals and finally of Vietnam itself is there to be found in the wrenching story of a marine’s desertion of a Vietnamese woman and her son. The evening’s far-from-happy closing tableau — of spilled Vietnamese blood and an American soldier who bears at least some responsibility for the carnage — hardly whitewashes the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. “Miss Saigon” is escapist entertainment in style and in the sense that finally it even makes one forget about all the hype and protests that greeted its arrival. But this musical is more than that, too, because the one thing it will not allow an American audience to escape is the lost war that, like its tragic heroine, even now defiantly refuses to be left behind. – Frank Rich in The New York Times

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Witold Lutoslawski / Rent

 

On this day in classical music: Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski was born in Warsaw in 1913. One of the major European composers of the 20th century, Lutoslawski composed a large body of music, including four symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra, a string quartet, several instrumental concertos and orchestral song cycles. By the 1950s, his compositional style combined contrapuntal forms with aleatoric practices and his own approach to twelve-tone technique. Listen to Nelson Freire and Martha Argerich perform Lutoslawski’s “Paganini Variations.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFsvmq-C9Kk

On this day in the musical theatre: Jonathan Larsen died an American composer and playwright Jonathan Larsen died of an aortic aneurysm just hours after the dress rehearsal for his musical “Rent.” A contemporary musical that explored such social issues as multiculturalism, addiction and homophobia, “Rent” won four Tony Awards, including one as Best Musical. The musical, which ran more than 12 years, also won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Listen to the Broadway cast perform “Seasons of Love” from Jonathan Larson’s “Rent.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj7LRuusFqo 

Musical musings: Two months, one Pulitzer Prize and acres of magazine and newspaper pages later, the waiflike hopes of the American musical are living in fancier digs. “Rent,” Jonathan Larson’s luminous, youthful musical that started off at the tiny New York Theater Workshop on East Fourth Street in February, opened on Broadway last night at the Nederlander Theater, after previews that drew such paparazzis’ dreams as Billy Joel, David Bowie and Ralph Fiennes. The vibrant 15 cast members are actually even better, as if they had found fresh reserves of energy in the glow of mainstream starlight. And the ingenuity and dexterity of Mr. Larson’s rock-pop score, translated with loving skill by Tim Weill’s onstage band, are, in fact, more evident now. The second act still feels more awkward than the first. But there’s no denying that Mr. Larson discovered a winningly accessible and ground-breaking musical formula that combines rock’s drive, pop’s memory-grabbing melodiousness and the leitmotifs and harmonic counterpoints of opera. And when the whole ensemble sings of making the most of limited time in “Seasons of Love,” the heart still melts and the eyes still mist. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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Norman Dello Joio / Grand Hotel

On this day in classical music: American composer Norman Dello Joio was born in New York City in 1913. Trained as an organist, Dello Joio eventually studied composition at The Juilliard School and subsequently became one of the mid-20th century’s best-known composers. He wrote a large body of orchestral, band and choral music. Dello Joio won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes” and an Emmy Award for his score to the 1964 television documentary “The Louvre.” Dello Joio taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the Mannes College of Music. He also served as professor and dean at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts. Listen to Jack Stamp and the Keystone Wind Ensemble perform Dello Joio’s “From Every Horizon.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA93DHHYbs8

On this day in the musical theatre: Author Vicki Baum was born in Vienna in 1888. Her 1929 novel “Menschen im Hotel,” better known as “Grand Hotel,” became her first international success. Baum was invited to write the screenplay for the film version of “Grand Hotel,” which became a classic and won an Academy Award as Best Picture. Nearly 30 years after her death in 1960, “Grand Hotel” became a hit musical that featured direction and choreography by Tommy Tune. The musical, which ran for 2½ years, won five Tony Awards. Watch Brent Barrett (Baron Felix von Gaigern) and Tony Award winner Michael Jeter (Otto Kringelein) and company perform the showstopping “We’ll Take a Glass Together” on the 1990 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QUCt4t92Zs

Musical musings: The director and choreographer Tommy Tune may have the most extravagant imagination in the American musical theater right now, and there isn’t a moment, or a square inch of stage space, that escapes its reach in “Grand Hotel.” The musical at the Martin Beck Theater is an uninterrupted two hours of continuous movement, all dedicated to creating the tumultuous atmosphere of the setting: an opulent way station at a distant crossroads of history in Berlin — that of 1928. Think of a three-dimensional collage — or a giant Joseph Cornell box two tall stories high — filled with the smoky light, faded gilt fixtures, dirty secrets, lost mementos and ghostly people of its time and place. Then imagine someone shaking the whole thing up as if waves were tossing around the Titanic. That’s Mr. Tune’s “Grand Hotel.” Mr. Tune’s restless manipulation of these resources is often inspired. In the opening number — a directorial tour de force to match the equivalent prologue, “Wilkommen,” in Harold Prince’s Weimar Berlin musical “Cabaret” — phalanxes of performers crisscross the stage in ever-changing configurations, the characters individually singing of their lots, until finally the audience sees the panorama of lives, upstairs and down, intersecting throughout the vast hotel. Though the effect is that of cinematic crosscutting, there’s never an intrusion of scenic machinery to yank the characters about. “Grand Hotel” finds its kaleidoscopic activity and churning pace in the constant rearrangement of the dozens of straight-backed chairs that are the set’s dominant furnishing, or in the sudden appearance of a quartet of desperate phone callers in a cacophonous downstage tableau, or in the hallucinatory fragments of period dance steps along the shadowy periphery of main events. As in Mr. Tune’s “Nine,” the large cast is omnipresent and usually on the run. So dense is the atmosphere that finally it can be stilled only by eradication — an effect Mr. Tune accomplishes in the coup de theatre that brings the evening to a close. – Frank Rich in The New York Times

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Edward MacDowell / Little Women

On this day in classical music: American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell died at age 47 in New York in 1908. In 1877, MacDowell studied music at the Paris Conservatoire and continued his studies in Frankfurt, Germany. The composer served as professor of music at Columbia University from 1897 to 1904. He is best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites “Woodland Sketches,” “Sea Pieces” and “New England Idylls.” The “Woodland Sketches” contains his most popular short piece, “To a Wild Rose.” In 1904, MacDowell was one of the first seven Americans honored by membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire remains popular as a haven for composers seeking a quiet setting for writing music. Listen to Stephen Hough perform MacDowell’s whirling “Hexentanz” (“Witches Dance”). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIGDgaP2FYI

On this day in the musical theatre: The musical “Little Women” opened on Broadway 2005. Featuring a book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, “Little Women” was based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic 1869 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Its plot focuses on the four March sisters — brassy, tomboy-like, aspiring writer Jo, romantic Meg, pretentious Amy, and kind-hearted Beth — and their beloved Marmee, at home in Concord, Massachusetts while the family patriarch is away serving as a Union Army chaplain during the Civil War. The Broadway cast included Sutton Foster as Jo and Maureen McGovern as Marmee. “Little Women” only managed a four-month run. Listen to Foster perform “Astonishing” from “Little Women.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSanYf07st8

Musical musings: Watching this shorthand account of four sisters growing up poor but honest during the Civil War is like speed reading Alcott’s evergreen novel of 1868. You glean the most salient traits of the principal characters, events and moral lessons, but without the shading and detail that made these elements feel true to life in the book. Since the characters do not acquire full personalities, you don’t feel emotionally invested in them. The slim and supple Ms. Foster has a lot to carry on those twitchy shoulders. If “Little Women” does develop the following of young girls and their mothers the producers have targeted, it will be largely Ms. Foster’s doing. Jo even has an eardrum-quaking first-act curtain number like Elphaba’s (“Defying Gravity”) in “’Wicked.” It is called “Astonishing.” But while Ms. Foster invests it with every ounce of her considerable skill and vigor, like so much of the show the song feels too ersatz to raise a single goosebump, much less astonish. – Ben Brantley in The New York Times

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John Williams / Celebration

On this day in classical music: John Williams’ “Cowboys Overture” was given its premiere by the Boston Pops in 1980. The composer conducted the premiere. Williams has become one of Hollywood’s most respected and talented film composers during a career that spans more than a half century. Among his hits are the scores to such films as the “Star Wars” saga, “Jaws,” “Superman,” the Indiana Jones films, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Home Alone,” “Hook,” “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “War Horse” and the first three “Harry Potter” films. Williams has also composed music for four Olympic Games, NBC Sunday Night Football, the NBC Nightly News and the Statue of Liberty’s rededication. Williams succeeded Arthur Fiedler as conductor of the Boston Pops and remained with the prestigious ensemble from 1980 to 1993. Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards and 21 Grammy Awards. He was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. Listen to the composer conduct his “Cowboys Overture.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPCpccUo8Lw

On this day in the musical theatre: Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s musical “Celebration” opened on Broadway in 1969. The musical fable explores the contrasts between youth and old age, innocence and corruption, love and ambition, and poverty and wealth. The musical, which followed other Jones and Schmidt successes “The Fantasticks,” “110 in the Shade” and “I Do! I Do!,” failed to attract a large following and closed after 110 performances. Listen to Keith Charles perform the opening number from “Celebration.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gH1bBOjoVU

Musical musings: I wish Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt hadn’t been working on “Celebration” for so long. The new musical has been the dream of this very talented team and they’ve worked at it, on and off, for close to eight years. But a lot has happened to the theatre — and us — during those years and “Celebration” has the look of its age. Everything about it, from the concept to the production to the sound of the orchestra is small scale. Finally, it has the kind of loose organization and cheerful inconsistency that you are sometimes willing to overlook when you’re in a cozy house, but is unavoidably amateur under big-time conditions. There are regular attempts at ritual (these using many wonderful masks designed by Schmidt himself) but they really don’t have much to do with the show and seem as if the authors merely decided that a theatre celebration would have to use ritual. Still, I’m glad they got “Celebration” out of their system and it is by no means a disaster – Martin Gottfried in Women’s Wear Daily

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Emmanuel Chabrier / Urinetown

On this day in classical music: French composer Emmanuel Chabrier was born in the Auvergne region of France in 1841. As an adult, Chabrier was well-connected in the Parisian arts community, counting Faure, Chausson, d’Indy, Monet, Degas, Manet, Zola, Daudet and Mallarme among his acquaintances. Chabrier’s musical output, while not large, contained two gems: “Joyeuse Marche” and “Espana.” Listen to the Orchestra of the Podlasie Opera and Philharmonic perform “Espana.” Marcin Nałęcz-Niesiołowski conducts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFF8l–PhHQ

On this day in the musical theatre: “Urinetown,” an offbeat musical set in a fictional time when severe water rationing resulted in people having to pay to use public toilets, closed on Broadway in 2004 after a 965-performance run. With music by Mark Hollmann and lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, “Urinetown” satirized the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement and municipal politics. The show’s score, which won a Tony Award, was somewhat reminiscent of music by Kurt Weill. “Urinetown” also took awards for book and direction. Watch Hunter Foster and the cast of the Broadway production perform “Run, Freedom, Run” on the 2002 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZV431zhXA4

Musical musings: The show, which remains a zesty and full-bodied original, began life in fact as a participant in the New York Fringe Festival, and given its toilet-centric plot, it was a reasonable level of entry. It became a surprise Off Broadway hit last spring … and it opened last night as a full-fledged Broadway show in a sporadically used and somewhat dilapidated theater (the Henry Miller on West 43rd Street), which has been modified (but with atmosphere in mind, not really spiffed up) for the purpose. Even in its previous incarnation, “Urinetown” was a show that resisted easy description, both a homage to and an outlandish spoof of the Brechtian theater of outrage and provocation. The title is emblematic, so thumb-in-the-eye unpleasant that it elicits an automatic question: Are you kidding? To which the answer is yes and no. “Urinetown” right now is simply the most gripping and galvanizing theater experience in town, equal parts visceral entertainment jolt and lingering provocation. – Bruce Weber in The New York Times

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Cesar Franck / No, No, Nanette

On this day in classical music: Cesar Franck’s “Piano Quintet in F Minor” was given its premiere by the Marsick Quartet in Paris in 1880. Camille Saint-Saëns was the pianist. The Belgian-born Franck studied in Paris and spent most of his adult life there. An accomplished organist, Franck held posts at several Parisian churches, most notably at Sainte-Clotilde where he remained from 1858 until his death in 1890. Franck’s musical output, while not particularly large, contains several notable works, including several works for organ, the piano quintet, a few symphonic poems and the “Symphony in D Minor.” Listen to pianist Eduard Zilberkant and the Kairos String Quartet perform the finale of Franck’s “Piano Quintet in F Minor.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr-8gAzfZ5o

On this day in the musical theatre: A revival of “No, No, Nanette” opened on Broadway in 1971. First staged in 1925, “No, No, Nanette” featured a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, lyrics by Irving Caesar and Harbach, and music by Vincent Youmans. The musical was based on Mandel’s 1919 play “My Lady Friends.” A lighthearted romp, “No, No, Nanette” focused on three couples staying at a cottage in Atlantic City. The plot may have been inconsequential but the score produced two notable hits: “I Want to Be Happy” and “Tea for Two.” The revival brought Ruby Keeler back to prominence and she got to impress a new generation of fans with her tap dancing. Her costars Helen Gallagher and Patsy Kelly won Tony Awards, as did Donald Saddler’s choreography and Raoul Pene du Bois’ costume design. Watch Keeler and company perform the infectious “I Want to Be Happy” at the 1971 Tony Awards broadcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aDJGvFSVOQ

Musical musings: Nostalgia may prove to be the overriding emotion of the seventies, with remembrance of things past far more comfortable than the realization of things present. For everyone who wished the world were 50 years younger — and particularly, I suspect, for those who remember it when it was 50 years younger — the revival of the 1925 musical “No, No, Nanette” should provide a delightful, carefree evening. This is far closer to a twenties musical than anything New York has seen since the twenties, but it is seen through a contemporary sensibility. Time-travelers of all ages will revel in the simplicity of Vincent Youman’s music. It is music to hum, and particularly music to dance to. Its rhythms suggest their own dancing feet, and the melodies are light, cheerful and exuberant, so that even the blues are not too blue. There are a number of standards and near-standards in the score, and they emerge fresh but with reverberations of the past. The choreography by Donald Saddler was creatively the most important new element in the show. This choreography dazzled — I had forgotten tap-dancing could be so much fun. – Clive Barnes in The New York Times

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