by Daniel Hathaway
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On this date in 1908, composer Leroy Anderson was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Although he studied music at the New England Conservatory and at Harvard (Walter Piston was his composition and orchestration teacher), he preferred to write short, light concert music, for which he had an eager collaborator in Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops.
During the COVID pandemic, Anderson received an encomium from New York Times critic Anthony Tomassini in his article Not Bach or Beethoven, but Leroy Anderson Is the Composer for Now, noting “His charming, deceptively simple music will make you feel better about things.”
Give it a try: click here to listen to Cleveland Orchestra Principal Trumpet Michael Sachs playing Bugler’s Holiday with trumpeters from his old high school in Santa Monica, California and his alma mater, UCLA. Travis J. Cross leads the UCLA Wind Ensemble.
And composer Bernard Herrmann was born on June 29, 1911 in New York. Herrmann has become famous for his film scores (he was a favorite of director Alfred Hitchcock), especially once symphony orchestras like Cleveland began hosting screenings with live music. Watch a documentary here, and listen to 48 tracks from a variety of films here. (And have a good look around next time before you step into the shower.)
Off the sound stage, Herrmann wrote concert music as well. Click here to listen to his 1941 Symphony in a performance he conducted himself, and here to hear his Sinfonietta for Strings played by the Berlin Symphony under Isaiah Jackson, former conductor of the Youngstown Symphony.
