Four Centuries of Great Music August 9, 2026 Birthday Anniversaries of Composers born in August

Four Centuries of Great Music - 08-09-26 Composers born in the month of August. I will be featuring three are American composers and one French composer and two men and two women.  I will open the first hour with the two men who I think of as 20th century composers: William Schuman and Louis Gruenberg.  Then during the second hour are the two women who were born in August a century apart:  Juliana Hall, who spans the 20th and 21st centuries, and Cécile Chaminade, a composer who spanned the 19th and 20th centuries


William Schuman (8/04/1910)
We open with the music of William Schuman.  William Schuman was born in Manhattan, New York City on August 4, 1910.  His family called him Bill.  He played the violin and banjo as a child but his real passion was baseball.  While still in high school, he formed a dance band, "Billy Schuman and his Alamo Society Orchestra", in which Schuman played string bass, that played local weddings and bar mitzvahs.

In 1928 he entered New York University's School of Commerce to pursue a business degree, at the same time working for an advertising agency. However, around that time, Schuman met lyricist Frank Loesser and wrote some forty songs with him including Loesser's first published song, "In Love with a Memory of You”.  But it was a concert of the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Arturo Toscanini on April 13, 1930 that convinced him to become a composer of serious art music.  He later wrote “The visual thing alone was astonishing. But the sound! I was overwhelmed. I had never heard anything like it. The very next day, I decided to become a composer.”  He dropped out of school and quit his part-time job to study music.

He is best known for his ballet music, symphonies and other orchestral music and chamber music.  He composed 10 symphonies but the first two were withdrawn so today we will be listening to his first published symphony, his symphony no. 3.  This symphony was complete in January 1941 and premiered in October of that year by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, to whom it is dedicated.  It is in two movements, each with two parts that are played without pause and each part is marked to indicate they are slow and fast reflecting the baroque tradition.  But there is little about these movements that follow baroque forms. The first movement is marked Passacaglia and Fugue and the second movement is marked Chorale and Toccata.

Here is a performance of 
William Schuman: Symphony No. 3 - I. Passacaglia and Fugue
William Schuman: Symphony No. 3 - II. Chorale and Toccata
Gerald Schwartz conducting the Seattle Symphony Orchestra 
Schuman: Symphonies Nos. 3, & 5; Judith 
Naxos Records



Louis Gruenberg.  Gruenberg was born on August 3, 1884 in Russia but his parents moved to the United States  when he was only a few months old.  He studied both at the National Conservatory in New York City and at in Europe with Ferruccio Busoni at the Vienna Conservatory.  As Gruenberg began to make his mark as a composer, he showed his fascination with jazz, composing works with strong jazz and ragtime influences.  Although perhaps most famous for his film scores, he also made his mark with the opera Emperor Jones which premiered during the 1933 season of the Metropolitan Opera.  Today we will be listening to his second symphony.  It is in 3 movements

Louis Gruenberg: Symphony No. 2   I.  A Broad Expansive Movement
Louis Gruenberg: Symphony No. 2   II.  Langsam Und Aushaltend
Louis Gruenberg: Symphony No. 2   III. Fantasievoll

Here is a performance of Louis Gruenberg’s Symphony # 2 by Paul Freeman conducting the Czech National Symphony Orchestra from the album Gruenberg: Symphonic Works  Albany Records


Juliana Hall (8/04/1958) 2026

Juliana Hall was born on August 4, 1958 in Huntington, West Virginia, and grew up across the river in Chesapeake, Ohio. Her mother was a pianist and began teaching Juliana piano when she was six years old.  Hall began her professional studies at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as a piano major studying with Jeanne Kirstein.  At this point she also showed interest in composition by taking a composition for performers class demonstrated her potential as a composer. After Kirstein died, Hall completed the final year of her bachelor's degree at the University of Louisville  where she studied with Lee Luvisi.  Hall went to graduate school at the Yale School of Music as a piano performance major studying with Boris Berman, but also began formal composition lessons with Martin Bresnick, Leon Kirchner, and Frederic Rzewski. As an aside, I was just chatting with Martin Bresnick at the beginning of this month at a music festival. At the urging of her composition teachers, she shifted her focus from piano to composition and, in 1987, earned her master's degree in composition. She finished her formal composition studies with Dominick Argento in Minneapolis.  Now everyone who listens to my programs regularly know of y love of the art song, and Juliana Hall’s music has focused on the art song and monodramas. 

Let’s listen to her song cycle from 2016 called 
A World Turned Upside Down(2016) –  which features 7 songs for soprano and piano based upon excerpts from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.  The songs are:
Birthday
Hiding
Food Cycles 
Footsteps
Chains
Writer
Patch of Blue

Cristina María Castro, soprano & Howard Watkins, collaborative pianist
A World Turned Upside Down 
ARSIS Audio

Cécile Chaminade was born on August 8, 1857 in Batignolles, a village then outside Paris. She first studied piano with her other, and was encouraged at 10 years old to enroll in the Conservatoire de Paris.  Her father objected to her enrollment at  Conservatoire the but allowed Cécile to study privately with piano professors from the Conservatoire.  She also began composing as a preteen  and at the age of 12 she played her compositions for Georges Bizet, who was impressed with her talents and encouraged her to continue composing.  In the following years she gained fae both as a pianist and composer.  As her fame grew Chaminade societies (or Chaminade Clubs) were popular early 20th-century music appreciation and performance groups in her honor.  As the performance of her works declined in the mid and late 20th these Chaminade societies (or Chaminade Clubs) remained. She died on April 13, 1944 in Monte Carlo.

Today I will be playing her Trio No. 2, Op. 34 in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello

Cécile Chaminade: Trio No. 2, Op. 34 in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello- I.  Allegro moderato
Cécile Chaminade: Trio No. 2, Op. 34 in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello - II. Lento – Animato – Tempo I – Poco più mosso – Tempo I
Cécile Chaminade: Trio No. 2, Op. 34 in A minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello - III.  Allegro energico

Neave Trio
In Her Hands
Chandos Records