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In 1621 Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck died at about age 59 in Amsterdam. 

Zelenka’s memorial plaque in Louňovice pod Blaníkem, Czech Republic

In 1679 Jan Dismas Zelenka was baptized in Lounovice, Czechoslovakia. Zelenka’s father was a schoolmaster and organist in Launiowitz and nothing more is known with certainty about Zelenka’s early years. He received his musical training at the Jesuit college Clementinum in Prague. His instrument was the violone (or bass viol). His first works, all oratorios, were written in his Prague student days. Zelenka served Baron von Hartig in Prague, before his appointment as violone player in Dresden’s royal orchestra around 1710. Possibly on Count Hartig’s recommendation, Zelenka was accepted to the Dresden Hofkapelle as a double bass player with a salary of 300 thalers. Zelenka arrived in Dresden in either 1710 or 1711 and the favorable conditions for music making at Dresden gave added impetus to his creativity, particularly with respect to the composition of sacred music for the Catholic court church. His first opus in Dresden was a Mass, the “Missa Sanctae Caeciliae” (c. 1711). His emigration from Bohemia, for unknown reasons, was most likely sudden. Some monographs give various personal reasons why he left. Zelenka continued his education in Vienna under the Habsburg Imperial Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux beginning in 1716. He returned to Dresden by 1719, where he started as assistant to Kapellmeister Johann David Heinichen but gradually took over Heinichen’s responsibilities as the latter’s health declined. After Heinichen died in 1729, Zelenka applied for the now-vacant post of Kapellmeister but it was given instead (in 1733) to the eminent opera composer Johann Adolf Hasse, reflecting the court’s fashionable interest in opera as opposed to the liturgical music that was Zelenka’s forte. Instead, in 1735, Zelenka was given the title of “church composer” – “Compositeur of the Royal Court Capelle” which none other than Johann Sebastian Bach himself had applied for in 1733 and did in fact receive it in 1736, replacing Zelenka, who was again disappointed by the court’s decision; but despite this he continued to compose assiduously. Such social failures might have turned him inward to exercise his free creative spirit and produce innovative work with unique qualities. J.S. Bach held Zelenka in high esteem, as evidenced by a letter of 13 January 1775 from his great son C.P.E. Bach to Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel. Zelenka was actually a guest in Bach’s Leipzig home at one point. Bach thought enough of Zelenka to have some of his works copied; e.g. he had his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, copy out the Amen from Zelenka’s third Magnificat (ZWV 108) for use in Leipzig’s St. Thomas’s church where J.S. Bach was cantor for the last 25 years of his life. In addition to composing, Zelenka taught throughout his life, instructing a number of prominent musicians of that time, e.g. Johann Joachim Quantz (Frederick the Great of Prussia’s longtime court flautist and flute teacher), J. G. Barter and J. G. Roellig. His close friends included eminent composers Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Georg Pisendel and Sylvius Leopold Weiss. Zelenka died of dropsy in Dresden on December 23, 1745, and was buried on Christmas Eve. His last works were never performed in his lifetime. He never married and had no children; his compositions and musical estate were purchased from his beneficiaries by Electress of Saxony Maria Josepha of Austria, and after his death were closely guarded (in contrast to their lack of appreciation when he was alive) and considered valuable court possessions. Telemann, with Pisendel’s assistance, tried unsuccessfully to publish Zelenka’s “Responsoria”. He wrote on 17 April 1756, with undisguised contempt for publishers’ disinterest in the work, that “the complete manuscript will be at the Dresden court, kept under lock and key as something very rare…”. There is no confirmed portrait of Zelenka, but worthy of mention is a mirror-image black-and-white copy of a well-known portrait of his old teacher Fux which has been passed off as a picture of Zelenka on several respected websites. 1

In 1750 Silvius Leopold Weiss died at age 64 in Dresden. 

Albert Franz Doppler

In 1821 Albert Franz Doppler was born in Lemberg, Poland (then part of the Austrian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine). He received flute lessons from his father, Joseph Doppler, who was an oboist, and made his debut as a flutist at the age of 13. He formed a flute duo with his brother Karl, four years younger, who mainly wrote songs and incidental music, and as a duo they caused quite a sensation throughout Europe. They toured and both became members of the orchestra of the German Theater, Budapest, in 1838 and both moved to the Hungarian National Theater in 1841. There, five of Franz’s operas were staged with success. Franz and Karl continued to make regular tours of Europe and helped found the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra in 1853. At the age of 18 Franz was the first flutist at the opera in Budapest, and he went on to be the first flutist and stand-in conductor, and eventually chief conductor, of the Vienna Court Opera, as well as acquiring a position of Professor of Flute at the Vienna Conservatoire from 1864 until 1867. He died in Baden bei Wien, Austria. 2

In 1891 The inaugural afternoon concert of the Chicago Symphony took place at the Chicago Auditorium, with Theodore Thomas conducting music of Wagner (“Faust” Overture), Beethoven (Symphony No. 5), Tchaikovsky (Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Rafael Joseffy), and Dvorák (“Hussite” Overture). The Symphony’s first evening concert occurred the following day. 

In 1893 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 premiered in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Oct. 28). 

In 1912 Arnold Schoenberg’s “Pierrot Lunaire” was premiered in Berlin. 

In 1920 Alberto Nepomunceno died at age 56 in Rio de Janeiro. 

In 1925 Richard Strauss’s “Parergon to the Symphonia domestica” for piano left hand and orchestra premiered in Dresden with Paul Wittgenstein the soloist. 

In 1926 Zoltán Kodály’s opera “Háry János” was premiered at the Budapest Opera. 

In 1931 was the American premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting. 

In 1934 Nikolai Myaskovsky’s Symphony No. 13 was premiered by the Musikkollegium orchestra, Hermann Scherchen conducting in Winterthur (Switzerland). 

In 1938 Aaron Copland’s ballet “Billy the Kid” was premiered in Chicago by the Ballet Caravan Company, with pianists Arthur Gold and Walter Hendel performing a two-piano version of the score. This Oct. 16 premiere date is persistently but incorrectly listed as Oct. 6 in many standard reference works and Copland biographies. 

In 1942 Aaron Copland’s ballet “Rodeo” was premiered by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in New York City. 

In 1946 Sir Granville Bantock died at age 78 in London. 

In 1958 Leonard Bernstein began his presentation of a “major view of American music” at the New York Philharmonic concerts with a Carnegie Hall concert that included works by Wallingford Riegger, John J. Becker and Carl Ruggles.

In 1960 Olivier Messiaen’s “Chronochromie” was premiered in Donaueschingen, Germany. 

In 1969 Leon Kirchner conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premier of his “Music” for orchestra. 

In 1976 Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Five Klee Pictures” for orchestra was premiered by the Young Musicians’ Symphony, James Blair conducting, in London at St. John’s Smith Square. 

In 1988 Stephen Paulus’ “Seven for the Flowers Near the River,” for viola and piano was premiered by Cynthia Phelps and Warren Jones at a Music in the Park chamber concert at St. Anthony Park UCC in St. Paul, Minn. 

In 1992 Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” No. 3 (dedicated to conductor JoAnn Falletta) was premiered by the Kansas City Symphony and conducted by Bill McGlaughlin. 

  1. Wikipedia contributors, “Jan Dismas Zelenka,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jan_Dismas_Zelenka&oldid=668041332 (accessed October 16, 2015)
  2. Wikipedia contributors, “Franz Doppler,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Franz_Doppler&oldid=678618049 (accessed October 16, 2015).

My thanks to John Zech for his wonderful Composers Datebook that provides much of the information for this blog.

Composers Datebook is produced by American Public Media in association with the American Composers Forum, with initial support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The creator of the series and its principal writer is John Michel of American Composers Forum. The Composers Datebook Web site is maintained by American Public Media with content provided by ACF.