Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Synopsis
Rugby is a style of football that originated in England at Rugby School and was played at British public boy’s schools during the 19th century.
It’s also the name of a tone poem written by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger that premiered in Paris at the Théâtre des Champes-Elysées on today’s date in 1928 at the first concert of the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris.
In describing his tone poem, Honegger wrote: “I’m very fond of soccer, but rugby is closer to my heart … I’m more keenly attracted by rugby’s rhythm, which is savage, abrupt, chaotic and desperate. It would be wrong to consider my piece as program music. It simply tries to describe in musical language the game’s attacks and counterattacks, and the rhythm and color of a match.”
Now, you would think in such a slam-bang contact sport as rugby that Honegger would employ a big battery of percussion instruments, but — surprise — they are totally absent in his score. Not to worry. There is plenty of rough-and-tumble action between the strings, woodwinds and brass, but fortunately no protective headgear is required by either the performers or the listeners.
Music Played in Today's Program
Arthur Honegger (1892-1955): Rugby
18 Oct 2026
Premiere of Brahms' 'Schicksalslied'
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1871, Hermann Levi conducted the premiere of a new choral work by Johannes Brahms: Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny. It’s a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, contrasting in its first part the blissful Greek gods on Mount Olympus and in its second the miserable suffering of we mortals below.
Brahms discovered the poem in summer 1868 while visiting his friend Albert Dietrich on the shores of the North Sea. As Dietrich recalled, during one seaside stroll: “Brahms, usually so lively, was quiet and grave. Earlier that morning (he was always an early riser), he had found Hölderlin’s poems in my bookcase and was deeply impressed. Later on, some of us were lounging by the sea, when we saw Brahms a long way off sitting by himself on the shore writing.”
Brahms originally planned to repeat the blissful opening words of the poem as the ending of his setting, but that didn’t ring true to the poem. He was stuck. Conductor Hermann Levi suggested a solution: Repeat the serene opening music, yes, but as a wordless, instrumental-only close.
Brahms had his solution, and, as a reward, Levi his premiere.
Music Played in Today's Program
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny); Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; Robert Shaw, conductor; Telarc CD 80176
17 Oct 2026
Boulez and Jarre
Synopsis
Today’s date in 1946 marks an important moment in Parisian theatrical history with the debut performance of a legendary acting company created by husband-and-wife actors Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud. Their opening production was Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a French translation by André Gide, with incidental music by Swiss composer Arthur Honegger. To play Honegger’s score, Barrault hired two young musicians at the start of their careers.
The first, 21, was to play the eerie electronic sounds Honegger scored for the Ondes Martinot, evoking the elder Hamlet’s ghost. That young musician was a composition student named Pierre Boulez, who would remain associated with Barrault’s company for a decade before becoming a famous conductor and composer of avant-garde scores like Le Marteau Sans Maître.
The second musician Barrault hired was a 22-year-old percussionist, who brought Hamlet to a dramatic close with timpani crescendos evoking Fortinbras’ final line in the play, “Go, bid the soldiers shoot.” That young musician, Maurice Jarre, would also become a famous composer, taking quite a different career path than Boulez. He devoted himself to film scoring, composing several famous ones, such as Dr. Zhivago for British film director David Lean.
Music Played in Today's Program
Pierre Boulez (1925-2016): Le Marteau Sans Maître; Orchestre Du Domaine Musical; Pierre Boulez, conductor; PCA 101
Maurice Jarre (1924-2009): Lara’s Theme from Dr. Zhivago; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Maurice Jarre, conductor; Sony 42307
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