by Daniel Hathaway

REVISITING JANUARY 6:

Because events yesterday in the state of Georgia and the nation’s capital were more than a little distracting, consider giving yesterday’s Diary a closer look and adding a celebration we didn’t get around to mentioning on January 6.

That would be Three Kings’ Day, or to call that Christian feast day by its Greek name, the Epiphany, marking the visit of the Magi to the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem, as well as the end of the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas. Although mentioned only in the Gospel of Matthew, the Astrologers or Wise Men “from the East” eventually became a trio, acquired names, and were upgraded to kings, most likely because of the nature of the gifts they brought along. They avoided the wrath of King Herod by returning to their country “by another way,” which may account for how they ended up in Germany, where legend has it that they were martyred and their bones preserved in a shrine (above) in Cologne (Köln) Cathedral.

Dial back a day and mark the occasion with some music that the legend of those three kings have inspired. There’s an ancient Provençal carol, The March of the Kings, that Georges Bizet cleverly combined with a farandole in his Arlesiénne Suite No. 2. Here’s an orchestral version played by the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Mariss Jansons, as well as an elaborate staging of a Mack Wilberg arrangement performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra.

Speaking of cleverly combining tunes, German composer Peter Cornelius also did that in his Die Drei Königen, where a male soloist narrates the story against the chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern. Here’s a German text version sung by Choir Filipovic, and an English version from King’s College, Cambridge.

The Kings play a central role in Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, written for television in 1951 and recently streamed by Cleveland Opera Theater.

And Duke Ellington’s last work, Three Black Kings, completed by his son Mercer and performed at his memorial concert in 1976, was choreographed by Alvin Ailey and performed by his troupe throughout the 1976-1977 season. The suite, whose three movements honor Balthazar, King Solomon, and Martin Luther King, Jr., received a symphonic arrangement from the pen of conductor Maurice Peress. Listen to the third movement as performed here by the Dayton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

French composer Francis Poulenc was born on this date in 1899, making January 6 a good occasion to revisit his Flute Sonata. Demarre McGill plays it here with pianist Michael McHale, but you can simultaneously raise a glass to a second musician, Jean-Pierre Rampal, born on this date in 1922, with a performance of the work he recorded with pianist Robert Veyron-Lacroix.

To end with a bit of sheer silliness, Rampal good-naturedly appears here in a duet with Miss Piggy.

by Jarrett Hoffman

PEACH-STATE CLASSICAL

Someone wrote on social media about being surprised to realize how many counties in the state of Georgia they’re now familiar with. The backdrop, of course, was the pair of January 5 runoff elections that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. One race remains too close to call this afternoon.

With that in mind, we’re featuring a few classical musicians and groups from Georgia today. There are many worthy options, and for variety’s sake, we’ve chosen a vocalist, a composer, and a contemporary ensemble, beginning with Augusta native Jessye Norman, the internationally beloved soprano who passed away in September 2020. It’s difficult to describe the beauty of her voice — one description that came close is from the pen of critic Edward Rothstein, who compared it to a “grand mansion of sound” in a 1992 review in The New York Times.

It defines an extraordinary space. It has enormous dimensions, reaching backward and upward. It opens onto unexpected vistas. It contains sunlit rooms, narrow passageways, cavernous halls. Ms. Norman is the regal mistress of this domain…

One of Norman’s most celebrated recordings is Strauss’s Four Last Songs with conductor Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Listen to the fourth movement here on YouTube (Norman enters at the two-minute mark).

Next we move southwest to Albany, the birthplace of Wallingford Riegger, known as one of the first American composers to adopt a form of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique — most famously in his Symphony No. 3, a hybrid of that style and conventional writing. Another important piece, Dance Rhythms, bears no trace of twelve-tone. Listen to that charming work here in a recording by the Cleveland Pops Orchestra in 1961, the year of Riegger’s passing.

And finally north to Atlanta, the home base of Faun And A Pan Flute, which visited Cleveland in 2018 in a presentation by the Syndicate for the New Arts. The ensemble, which ranged in size over the years from four to twelve members, has since closed up shop, but their music is still very much worth a listen — a delightful and offbeat blend of styles right at home in the absorbing world of contemporary classical-jazz-pop.

It’s also fun to go back and read the words of John Gregg, their former percussionist, who’s actually a native of Shaker Heights. In an interview before that 2018 concert, he offered a glimpse into the group’s collective process of composition, always a fascinating topic. “There’s a lot of talking, a lot of back and forth, and cutting and pasting to put things together and try it out — and if it doesn’t work, we try something else,” he said. More on the miscellaneous side, he conjured up one image that has stuck with me ever since: going out on tour in an old Frito-Lay truck.

Now — back to refreshing those vote tallies over and over in a way that can only be described as healthy and productive.

ONE FEATURE ON THE WEB:

Tonight at 7:30 pm, Jazz at Lincoln Center presents “Clifford Brown at 90: Brownie Speaks,” featuring trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, pianists Aaron Diehl and Dan Tepfer, and the Spirit of the Groove student ensemble from the Tri-C JazzFest Academy. The one-hour concert, which includes new music inspired by Brown’s solos, is part of a festival celebrating the rising star trumpet player who died at 25 in an auto accident in 1956. Click here at start time.

by Daniel Hathaway

When the breathtaking cascade of live concert cancellations began last March, the staff of ClevelandClassical.com wondered what we would have to write about in the coming weeks — and now months. We decided to launch a new feature, the Daily Diary, both to keep track of fast-moving developments in classical music, and to provide a platform to publish information that didn’t quite call for an entire article.

Along with the daily Almanac, the Diary has proved to be a useful tool. We’ll use it in this edition to catch up on news from all over that has come in during the holidays.

CLEVELAND CHAMBER CHOIR RELEASES DEBUT ALBUM:

Combining selections recorded live during its fourth and fifth seasons, Cleveland Chamber Choir has produced its first CD, I Sing to Use the Waiting: Live with the Cleveland Chamber Choir. Scott MacPherson conducts his singers in the 16 tracks, which are available both as a physical CD and a digital download. Details here.

CONCERT ARTISTS GUILD:

Applications will be received beginning on February 1 for Concert Artists Guild’s 2021 competition, to align with YCAT,  the organization’s European Partner, and to be held online. Prizewinners, to be announced on June 8, will receive international management services, concerts in New York and London, and other performance prizes. Read the application details here.

NEWS FROM EARLY MUSIC AMERICA:

The January issue of EMA’s EMAg, featuring makers of historical keyboard instruments is now available online. Articles by Sonia Lee, Mike Cheng-Yu Lee, Parker Ramsay, and Marilyn R. Farwell discuss plucked instruments, historical pianos, historically inspired organ building in the US, and (moving on to human instruments) Castrati, Contraltos, and Countertenors. There’s lots more between EMAg’s covers, including a review of Bach cello and gamba works by ClevelandClassical.com’s  Jarrett Hoffman. Click here to access.

EMA has also extended the deadline for applications to its Emerging Artists Showcase in June to midnight on January 7. Details here.

CIM PROVOST SEARCH:

The Cleveland Institute of Music has launched a nationwide search for an Executive Vice President and Provost. Read the Musical America job listing here.

IVES PIANO STUDIES OUT:

Peermusic Classical will release Volume 2 of The Complete Shorter Works for Piano by Charles Ives this month, wrapping up a thirty-year project of the Charles Ives Society to publish a critical edition of some of the iconoclastic American composer’s most challenging music. Editors Donald Berman and James B. Sinclair worked with a collection of photostats the composer gave to pianist John Kirkpatrick in 1938, comparing them to Ives’ own dynamic recordings in the 1930s and 1940s. Read a press release here.

TWO DOZEN CONCERTOS FROM RACHEL BARTON PINE:

In what might be described as a pedagogical marathon, violinist Rachel Barton Pine will perform 24 violin concertos in 24 weeks from January 10 through June 20 in online programs that “share her perspectives on each master work, explaining how she prepares to play it and how her performance connects to the work’s historical and musical context.” Designed for career violinists, advanced students, and violin teachers, as well as aficionados, Concertos from the Inside goes live at 4:00 pm ET Sundays on OurConcerts.Live, and costs $20 per show or $349.99 for the whole series. Details here.

NEW YORK’S ST. PETER’S FLOODED:

The congregation of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York made news when they sold their midtown land on Lexington Avenue to Citybank in 1970 and moved into new lodgings next to a new 59-story office tower. Famous for its music programs and its Klais organ, the church was heavily damaged in a water main break over the holidays. Cantor Balint Karosi posted photos of the damage here.

R.I.P. CLAUDE BOLLING:

The French pianist who successfully combined jazz with classical music and was mentored by Duke Ellington, died on December 29 in suburban Paris. Read the Washington Post obituary here.

MET MUSICIANS LODGE PROTEST:

Operawire has published a statement by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians in response to the hiring of European players for its recent New Year’s Eve Gala, while the MET Orchestra has been furloughed without pay for ten months. Read the statement here.

STROUD COMPETITION, CHAPTER TWO:

Applications from US residents ages 14-18 for the 2nd Annual James Stroud Classical Guitar Competition will be accepted from February 1 through March 1. The competition will be held in conjunction with the Cleveland International Classical Guitar Competition at CIM next spring. Details here.

BRIAN JOHNSON CELEBRATES 25 YEARS:

Brian Keith Johnson, Northeast Ohio’s ubiquitous and beloved operatic baritone, has made a video of arias by Verdi and Mozart celebrating his 25 years as a soloist in productions by The Cleveland Opera. Watch here.

BROUWER PLANS NEW CD:

Composer Margaret Brouwer has put her time to good use during the pandemic, recording the master for a new CD of recent chamber music with her Blue Streak Ensemble— her first recording in seven years. Performers for her Rhapsodic Sonata (2016), Declaration (2005), This Morning is Beautiful (2019), and I CRY: Summer 2020 include mezzo-soprano Sarah Beaty, tenor Brian Skoog, violinist Mari Sato, violist Eliesha Nelson, and pianist Shuai Wang.

Brouwer notes that the recording has been done “in true 2020 fashion,” Beaty singing from Los Angeles and Sato and Wang recording in CIM’s Kulas Hall. Brouwer has taken a similar approach to a commission for pianist Orli Shaham and the Pacific Symphony’s Cafe Ludwig Chamber Series, in which the musicians will play their parts from home, later to be combined by a recording engineer. That piece will be streamed during 2021.

by Jarrett Hoffman

A NEW SEASON FROM TUESDAY MUSICAL:

Tuesday Musical has announced its 2021 Akron Concert Series, set to begin in March at E.J. Thomas Hall after being shifted over from last fall. It includes performances by bassist Edgar Meyer, pianist Emanuel Ax, vocal ensemble Chanticleer, clarinetist Anthony McGill with the Pacifica Quartet, and the Sphinx Virtuosi chamber orchestra.

The five-concert season comes with what the organization promises to be stringent safety protocols, as well as flexible attendance options and concert cancellation protection. Subscriptions are now available, but because of limited seating due to social distancing, single-concert tickets will only be sold closer to the concert dates, pending availability.

“We’ve grappled with how, when, and even if we could again share the joys of live music during these challenging times,” executive director Cynthia Snider said in a press release. “Now we’re moving forward — carefully and creatively — so that music lovers can enjoy safe and expertly curated concert experiences.” More details here.

DVOŘÁK MUSIC MEDICINE VIDEOS:

The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Clinic sent out the last dose in their Music Medicine series this morning. Click here to watch violist Lynne Ramsey and violinists Jessica Lee and Stephen Rose play the Larghetto from Dvořák’s C-major Terzetto — not a vaccine, but still something healing. That also makes two-in-a-row for Dvořák: the previous entry in the series, which came during our holiday hibernation, featured the Serenade for Strings led by Vinay Parameswaran — watch that one here. 

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Now we move from Dvořák to the man who was both a favorite pupil and his son-in-law: Josef Suk, the Bohemian composer and violinist who was born on this date in 1874 (not to be confused with the succession of other men in his family with that same name, including his famous violinist grandson).

Suk’s music has cropped up here and there in Cleveland over the years, including at the debut concert from the Earth and Air String Orchestra in 2015, which featured the Op. 6 Serenade side by side with Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings — an interesting combination, as director David Ellis told ClevelandClassical.com’s Mike Telin in an interview:

In some ways, Suk carbon-copied from Dvořák, and if you put the two scores side by side there are places where they’re very much alike. But at the same time, there are places in the Suk where you expect Billie Holiday to show up. There are early — or what would later become — jazz chords, so there are a lot of early twentieth century influences coming through.

Listen for yourself: Suk here from the New York Classical Players, and Dvořák up above in The Cleveland Orchestra’s Music Medicine video.

Skipping in time and place to January 4, 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri, we come to the birth of opera singer Grace Bumbry, who hit stardom when she sang the role of Venus in a production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser at the Bayreuth Festival Theatre, becoming the first African-American vocalist to appear there — and receiving 42 curtain calls, lasting half an hour.

In addition to her many honors, her trailblazing career, and her embrace of the term “diva,” she’s also known for transitioning from mezzo-soprano to soprano. Hear and appreciate her both ways: first in the “Habanera” from Carmen in a 1967 opera film directed by Herbert von Karajan, and then in “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca in 1992 in front of an unidentified orchestra led by Daniel Nazareth.

And finally, jumping backwards to 18th-century Italy, composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on this day in 1710. He’s best known for the work he wrote in the final weeks of his short life: the Stabat Mater. The British period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment brought it to Oberlin’s Finney Chapel in 2019, and countertenor Iestyn Davies shared his thoughts about it with Mike Telin in a preview:

The penultimate movement, ‘Quando corpus morietur’ — when my body dies and gets delivered to paradise — is so evocative of somebody lying on their deathbed…It’s the dying moments of a composer and yet it’s his most celebrated work. Pergolesi was only in his late 20s when he died, so it’s tragic that he never saw the success of the piece.

Listen here to a recording of that last movement by Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony, then go have a good, cathartic cry.

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

On this date in 1808 in Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, Ludwig van Beethoven presented one of the most talked-about concerts of the 19th century. Over the course of four hours in an unheated hall, the audience heard the premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Fourth Piano Concerto, Choral Fantasy, mass movements, and an aria, performed by a hostile and under-rehearsed orchestra and a teen-aged replacement soprano, with Beethoven himself at the piano.

That musical marathon has inspired a number of re-creations — but well-rehearsed and with heat — most recently by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra in March of 2020, just before concerts were shut down by the pandemic. Salonen talks about the event here.

The Choral Fantasy was among the works Oberlin had planned to perform in celebration of the composer’s 250th birthday, but the novel coronavirus upended plans for a performance in October by piano professor Peter Takács and the college’s Arts and Sciences Orchestra. Instead, conductor Tiffany Chang gave herself a crash course in video editing and assembled over 200 performers from all over the globe to create a virtual performance of the work. Four hundred hours later, the results premiered in an online concert on December 15. In an interview to be posted later today, Chang tells me how she decided to go down that path and what she learned from the experience.

In other news, Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini was born on this date in 1858 in Lucca. His popular verismo operas need little introduction, except to note that they cast a wide geographical net from Italy to Asia and the American West. Because its opening takes place on that evening, Christmas Eve is a  particularly appropriate time to watch La Bohème, and the MET Opera has obliged by scheduling a December 24th encore performance of its January, 1982 production featuring Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto, José Carreras, Richard Stilwell, and James Morris. It starts at 7:30 pm.

On November, 29, 1924, news of Puccini’s death in Brussels following treatment for throat cancer reached a theater in Rome where Bohème was in mid-performance. The opera was halted and Chopin’s Funeral March was played to what was described as a stunned audience.

There’s a recent Cleveland connection to the Austrian avant-garde composer Ernest Krenek, who died in Palm Springs, California on this date in 1991. Krenek first made a splash in Europe with his 1926, jazz-influenced score, Jonny spielt auf, but wrote in a variety of styles. He abandoned Europe for North America in 1938, teaching first at Vassar.

In his review of a recent Cleveland Orchestra recording, Jarrett Hoffman writes, “Franz Schubert’s spirited and expansive “Great” Symphony in C (1826) sits alongside the ten miniatures that make up Ernst Křenek’s atonal and highly atmospheric Static and Ecstatic (1972). In brilliant performances captured live at Severance Hall just before the coronavirus shutdown in March, each work packs quite an artistic punch, though they both require a measure of patience from the listener.”

LOOKING BEYOND THE PANDEMIC:

The new music festival June in Buffalo is making plans for the summer of 2021. The Center for 21st Century Music at SUNY Buffalo has announced that June in Buffalo will run from June 7-13, and applications from future participant composers are now being accepted until the Monday, February 8 deadline. Apply here.

MUSIC FOR CHRISTMAS OR THE HOLIDAY YOU CELEBRATE:

Online performances by our local organizations include The Cleveland Orchestra’s free 1984 “Symphony in Celebration” led by Robert Page, Les Délices (“Noel, Noel” on-demand has been extended through December 27), Apollo’s Fire (“Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” available on demand for 30 days), and Quire Cleveland (a selection of individual carols). And Cleveland Opera Theater’s Amahl and the Night Visitors can be watched on demand through January 6.

WCLV’s Ovations on Wednesday at 8:00 pm will present “Holiday Treasures with Cleveland Chamber Choir,” including music for Advent, Hanukkah, and Christmas drawn from their 2018 and 2019 holiday concerts. Tune in at 104.9 FM or online.

Oberlin’s a cappella group, the Obertones, have produced a special five-song holiday video. Watch here.

And here are three events from Boston: The Handel & Haydn Society have come up with a way of continuing their 167-year run of Handel’s Messiah, the Harvard University Choir presents a virtual version of what may be America’s oldest carol service on Christmas Eve, and the American Repertory Theater offers younger viewers a musical production of Jack in the Beanstalk from the Harvard campus.)

Many other Christmas programs are available through Musical America’s Guide to Streams. Scan the possibilities and enjoy!

WE’LL SEE YOU IN 2021:

After today’s entries, the Diary and the Tuesday Newsletter will take a holiday break until Tuesday, January 4. Best wishes for a restful and restorative holiday season!

by Daniel Hathaway

TODAY ON THE WEB AND AIRWAVES:

Today, Apollo’s Fire debuts its “Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain” HD video, recorded last season at the Cleveland Museum of Art (read our review of the previously released audio CD here). The show replaces the in-person performances that Cleveland’s Baroque Orchestra had originally planned for December.

The Cleveland Orchestra has just announced a special online feature with the Orchestra Chorus. Home For the Holidays is “a heartwarming and festive visual album of seasonal music from the past and present, filled with imagery from ‘Cleveland’s most loved holiday tradition.’” Watch for free on the Adella platform.

And the Cleveland Chamber Music Society has just posted the latest episode in its Front Row series in collaboration with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Violinist Cho-Liang Lin joins pianist Jon Kimura Parker, violinist Erin Keefe, violists Hsin-Yun Huang and Paul Neubauer, and cellists Dmitri Atapine and Colin Carr in music by Foss, Dvorak, and Tchaikovsky. Watch here through December 22.

Akron’s Summit Choral Society goes online with its annual Candlelight Concert, and the Western Reserve Chorale releases its third holiday program featuring Christmas music from its archives. Details in the Concert Listings.

Among today’s interesting events on the national scene: Johannes Vogel conducts Mahler’s reorchestration of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony from Synchron Stage, Vienna (also available on December 19 and 20, tickets here), San Francisco’s Old First Concerts feature pianist Daniel Glover in “Symphonies and Concertos without Orchestra (a Covid Compromise)” including works by Clementi, Beethoven-Alkan, Corigliano, and Liszt (connect here with a donation), and the Library of Congress presents the latest in its 80-year tradition of Stradivari Anniversary Concerts (link here).

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

Did we just mention the Stradivari Anniversary? On this date in 1737, Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari died in Cremona, having crafted some 1,100 instruments — mostly violins, but also violas, cellos, harps, guitars and mandolins, of which some 650 survive today. That includes instruments in the collections of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, which regularly make appearances in concerts. View a fascinating list of Stradivari’s surviving instruments, their owners, and lendees here.

There’s a mystique about the stringed instruments that came out of the ateliers of the great 17th and 18th century Italian makers in Cremona. Multiple explanations have been put forward about what makes them stand head and shoulders above those of other makers (watch The Secret of the Violin here), although there are performers who debunk their superiority over later instruments.

Strads are priceless these days. Many are owned by hedge funds and put out on long-term loans to performers, or are held in museums or libraries where violinists are hired to play them regularly to keep their sound alive. That hasn’t prevented artists from leaving their instruments in taxicabs (as did cellist Yo Yo Ma and violinist Philippe Quin in New York) or in the luggage rack of a train (as did an unnamed violinist in Germany). All were happily returned within a few hours. Other instruments have simply been stolen, as in the case of Roman Totenberg’s fiddle, which disappeared from his office at the Longy School of Music in 1980 only to be recovered 35 years later.

While waiting for Strad owner James Ehnes to complete his Beethoven cycle in May of 2021, visit the Cleveland Chamber Music Society’s “Safe at Home” page to enjoy the sound of a Stradivari instrument in the hands of a master.

Back home in the U.S., today marks the anniversaries of a number of American composers: the birth of Edward MacDowell in 1860, the death of Louis Moreau Gottschalk in 1969, the death of Horatio Parker in 1919, the birth of Bang-On-a-Can founder Julia Wolfe in 1958, and the death of Daniel Pinkham in 2006.

And on a seasonal note, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker made its debut in St. Petersburg, Russia, on this date in 1892. Only 74 years later, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas made its first appearance on CBS TV, featuring the voice of Boris Karloff. Classics both of them.

by Daniel Hathaway

HAPPENING TODAY:

If you were a medieval monk, today’s agenda would include the singing of the first of eight daily “Great O Antiphons” at Vespers, marking the beginning of a crescendo into Christmas Day on December 25. Each is based on a text from the Hebrew prophets and Wisdom books and describes an attribute of Christ (O Wisdom, O Lord, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Dayspring, O King of Nations, O Emmanuel).

The tradition lives on. Contemporary composer Nico Muhly has written organ pieces based on the Eight Antiphons, a set that recent Clevelander Buck McDaniel performed last Sunday at New York’s Church of St. John in the Village. They’re still available as part of the program he gave with tenor Matt Jones. Watch here (minimum donation of $5).

If you missed the debut of the fourth episode of The Cleveland Orchestra’s In Focus series led by Nicholas McGegan, or Les Délice’s Noel, Noel Christmas program, they’re still available on demand (follow the hyperlinks). And heads up: Apollo’s Fire’s Christmas on Sugarloaf Mountain, recorded last year at the Cleveland Museum of Art becomes available online on Friday the 18th.

And the most recent Cleveland Orchestra “On a Personal Note” podcast finds pianist Mitsuko Uchida remembering the “familial nature” of her long relationship with the ensemble.

Events on the web today include the latest episode of Local 4 Music Fund’s “Tuning In,” featuring Eric Charnofsky’s piano quintet 5 by 5, and a holiday program by “Portland’s Little Orchestra” Pink Martini, a group that has delighted Cleveland audiences in seasons past. Details in our Concert Listings.

Moving farther afield, Musical America’s Guide to (mostly free streams) points us to a special program by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard from The Gilmore that links Beethoven’s avant-garde tendencies to works by Messiaen, Stockhausen, and Kurtág (a premiere), and a concert from the Detroit Symphony led by its new music director Jader Bignamini that includes Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst.

TODAY’S ALMANAC:

By some calendars, the first Saturnalia festival was held on this date in Rome in 497 BCE, just one of the ancient Winter Solstice-centered events that might have influenced modern Christmas celebrations way down the line, including such traditions as the Christmas card, the first example having been commissioned on this date in 1843 by Henry Cole, founder of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Ballet legend Vaslav Nijinsky was born on this day in 1889 in Kviv, but considered himself to be Polish. Admired for his athletic leaps and his ability to dance en pointe, he joined Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1909 just in time to choreograph Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune in 1912 (he wrote a sexually suggestive final scene for himself), and Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps in 1913. Sadly, he spent the last three decades of his life in and out of mental institutions. Watch a digital reconstruction by Christian Compte of Nijinsky dancing the role of the Faun here.

And Arthur Fiedler, who conducted the Boston Pops for just short of five decades beginning in 1930, was born on December 17 in 1894. His vast list of recordings includes the premiere of Danish composer Jacob Gade’s Jalousie ‘Tango Tzigane,’ which sold more than a million copies, and the first complete performance of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Fiedler’s hobbies included a lifetime fascination with fire engines, which won him the title of “Honorary Captain” in the Boston Fire Department.

Finally, British composer, critic, and all-around colorful literary figure Philip Heseltine took his own life on this date in 1930 at the age of 36. He wrote music under the nom de plume of Peter Warlock, and we’ll remember him with some of his jollier music: the Three Carols, colorfully orchestrated by the composer and ebulliently performed by the City of London Choir and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Click on the links to hear “Tyrley trylow,” “Balulalow,” and “As I Sat Under a Sycamore Tree.”