Four Centuries of Great Music January 4, 2026 Music of Some Composers Born in January

FCGM-01-04-26  Composers born in January
Kevin PUTS            01/03/1972
Francis POULENC        01/07/1899-01/30/1963
David LANG              01/08/57    
Mélanie (Mel) BONIS    01/21/1858-03/18/1937

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music I am featuring four composers whose birthdays or birthday anniversaries are in the month of January.  Two of these composers were most active in the early part of the 20th century, one is considered a late 20th century and 21st century composer and the last is clearly a 21st century composer.

Lets start with the youngest of the two living composers - Kevin Puts was born on January 3, 1972 in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in Alma, Michigan.  He studied composition and piano at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University, earning the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Eastman School of Music. Among his teachers was composer  David Lang, whose birthday we are also celebrating in this episode of Four Centuries of Great Music.  He is best known for his opera The Hours and for winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his first opera, Silent Night, and a Grammy Award in 2023 for his concerto Contact.  You an hear members of the ensemble Time for Three on January 14th on Savannah Music Local and Sustainable from 9-10pm talk about and listen to Kevin Puts’ Contact.  And the Savannah Philharmonic is performing his work Contact on their January 17th concert at 7:30 pm at the Lucas Theater for the Performing Arts.


But today we will be listening to a new recording from September  of his Concerto for Orchestra.  It has 6 movements
1. Hymn for the Hurting        
2. Caccia No. 1             
3. Music Box with Arietta        
4. Toccata        
5. Sicilienne     
6. Ecco la Marcia? (Caccia No. 2) 

KEVIN PUTS: Concerto for Orchestra
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra,  Stéphane Denève, Conductor
KEVIN PUTS: CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA, SILENT
NIGHT ELEGY & VIRELAI
Delos Records

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music I am featuring four composers whose birthdays or birthday anniversaries are in the month of January. Now we move from the last born to the earliest born, Mel Bonis.  Mel Bonis was born on  January  21, 1858 in Paris France.  She was endowed with great talent and musical sensitivity, she taught herself to play the piano. Initially, her parents did not encourage her music, but when she was twelve they were persuaded by a professor at the Paris Conservatoire to allow her to receive formal music lessons.   In 1874, at the age of sixteen, she began her studies at the Paris Conservatoire, and attended classes in accompaniment, harmony, and composition, where she shared the benches with Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierné and received tuition from César Franck.

When she was twenty-five, her parents arranged for her to marry the businessman Albert Domange who was twenty-two years her senior with five children and Bonis immersed herself in domesticity because Domange did not like music.

In the late 1890s, Bonis re-encountered Amédée Hettich, a lover of hers from the Paris Conservatoire, who was by then a respected vocal teacher and writer on music who encouraged Bonis to return to composition and was able to introduce her to some of the major publishers, after which her compositional career began to succeed.  She wrote her Suite en trio, for flute, violin and piano, Op. 59 in 1903.  It is in three movements

Mel Bonis:  Suite en Trio, Op. 59:  I. Serenade
Mel Bonis:  Suite en Trio, Op. 59:  II. Pastorale
Mel Bonis:  03 Suite en Trio, Op. 59:  III. Scherzo

Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, members
Bonis: Suite en Trio - Scenes de la Foret - Suite Dans Le Style Ancien - Air Vaudois - Fantaisie, "Septuor" - Piece Pour Flute Et Piano
SWR Music / Hanssler Classics

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music I am featuring four composers whose birthdays or birthday anniversaries are in the month of January. We will stay in France around the turn of the 19th into the 20th century with Francis Poulenc.  Poulenc was born on January 7, 1899 in Paris. Initially taught piano by his mother, he soon became a pupil of pianist Ricardo Viñes, who encouraged him to begin composition. He developed a friendship with two composers who helped shape his early development as a composer: Georges Auric and Erik Satie.  In addition  to Auric, he began spending time with Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Germaine Tailleferre who, with Poulenc, became known collectively as "Les Six”.   

Lets listen to a choral work written by Poulenc late in his career his Gloria- it is in 6 movements


Poulenc: Gloria - Gloria In Excelcis Deo
Poulenc: Gloria - Laudamus Te
Poulenc: Gloria - Domine Deus
Poulenc: Gloria - Domine Fili Unigenite
Poulenc: Gloria - Domine Deus, Agnus Dei
Poulenc: Gloria - Quie Sedes Ad Dexteram Patris
Danielle Borst, Eric Lebrun; Michel Piquemal: Orchestre De La Cité, Choeur Régional Vittoria d'Ile De France
Poulenc: Stabat Mater, Gloria, Litanies
Naxos

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music I am featuring four composers whose birthdays or birthday anniversaries are in the month of January.  The last composer that we will share the music today, David Lang,  who was a compositional mentor of Kevin Puts.  David Lang was born on January 8, 1957 in in Los Angeles, California.  In his youth he played trombone.  After completing his undergraduate degree at Stanford University, he went to the University of Iowa to begin his graduate studies. 
Lang went on to earn a Doctorate of Musical Arts at Yale University in 1989 where he studied with Martin Bresnick. Together with Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, Lang co-founded the musical organization Bang on a Can in 1987.In 2008 he joined the Yale School of Music composition faculty.  In 2016 he was welcomed to the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton University as the Institute's Artist in Residence, a position he holds to this day.    

He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2008 for The Little Match Girl Passion, composed in 2007 for Paul Hillier and his Theatre of Voices.  He received the Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance in 2009 for the original recording of The Little Match Girl Passion.

Today we will be listening to his work Poor Hymnal featuring The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor which has been nominated for the 2026 Grammy award for Best Choral performance.  It is in 14 movements 

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - I. I saw a poor man
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Elisa Sutherland solo

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - II. open your hands (after deuteronomy 15 )
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - III. our hearts tell us (after psalm 27 and mahatma gandhi)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - VI. all who are hungry (after the passover haggadah)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Rebecca Siler  solo

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - V. the least of us (after leviticus 19 and matthew 25) 
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Lauren Kelly solo

David Lang: Poor Hymnal  - VI. I know I should (after h.a.walter)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Steven Bradshaw

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - VII. if you close your ear (after proverbs 21:13)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - VIII. prayer for kindness
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - IX. what is mine (after elizabeth warren, barack obama, and saint basil
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - X. take nothing with you (after luke 9:3)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - XI. what remains (after the sayings of the fathers and matthew 6)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Michael Hawes solo

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - XII. things that never fail (after 1 corinthians 13)
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - XIII. I saw a poor man – choral return
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor

David Lang:  Poor Hymnal  - XIV.  wherever charity is (after tolstoy, after ubi caritas) . . . .
The Crossing, Donald Nally conductor and Elisa Sutherland solo