Ģ002 - Paul Schoenfield: 'Partita' for violin and piano, at a Chamber Music Society of Minnesota concert in St. This work won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Music ġ967 - Levy: opera 'Mourning Becomes Electra' (after the play by Eugene O'Neill) at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City ġ972 - Crumb: 'Vox balaenae' for three masked musicians, in Washington, D.C.

29) ġ945 - Miakovsky: Cello Concerto, in Moscow ġ951 - Dessau: opera 'Die Verhör des Lukullus' (The Sentencing of Lucullus), in East Berlin at the Deutsche Staatsoper (Berlin State Opera) This opera was revised as 'Die Verurteilung des Lukullus' (The Judgement of Lucullus) at the same theater on OctoThe libretto is by the German poet and playwright Bertold Brecht ġ954 - Quincy Porter: 'Concerto Concertante' for two pianos and orchestra, in Louisville, Ky. 1 (first movement only) (Gregorian date: Mar. 29) ġ892 - Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 39, for piano, in Vienna ġ879 - Tchaikovsky: opera 'Eugene Onegin,' in Moscow (Gregorian date: Mar. 1929) Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) Zizi Mueller, flute Fred Sherry, cello James Gemmell, piano New World 357 On This Day Birthsġ839 - German composer Josef Rheinberger, in Vaduz, Liechtenstein ġ920 - American composer John LaMontaine, in Chicago ġ862 - French opera composer Jacques François Halévy, age 62, in Nice ġ733 - Handel: oratorio 'Deborah' in London at the King's Theater in the Haymarket (Gregorian date: March 28) ġ846 - Verdi: opera 'Atilla,' in Venice at the Teatro La Fenice ġ867 - Brahms: Waltzes, Op. from the beginning of time,' Crumb quotes, with tongue firmly planted in masked cheek, the famous sunrise theme from Richard Strauss' 'Also sprach Zarathustra,' used to great effect in the opening of the Kubrick film '2001.' Music Played in Today's Program In the opening of his piece, marked 'Vocalise. I have also suggested that the work be performed under deep-blue stage lighting.' The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful impersonal forces of nature. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask or visor-mask.

The work was entitled Vox Balaenae, which is Latin for The Voice of the Whale, and it's scored for three masked musicians, performing on electric flute, electric cello, and amplified piano.Ĭrumb writes, 'The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Ideally, and 'impractically' according to Crumb, it should have been heard, not in a concert hall in March… but in the open air… heard at a distance across a body of water, on a moonlit evening in August. On today's date in 1972, a most unusual chamber work by the American composer George Crumb had its premiere at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

George crumb whale