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| Thursday, December 31
Martinu and Hanson premieres In the 1940's, the Boston Symphony gave the premiere of more than 60 new orchestral works. Most were conducted by the very charismatic -- and very wealthy -- Serge Koussevitzky, the music director of the Boston Symphony. And why not? It was the Koussevitzky Foundation that commissioned most of those pieces in the first place, and certainly Maestro Koussevitzky had the knack for picking winners and advancing the careers of composers he admired. In the 1940's, for example, Koussevitzky premiered no less than four major works by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. On today's date in 1943, one of these pieces, Martinu's Second Violin Concerto, received its first performance under Koussevitzky with Mischa Elman as the soloist. But not all the Boston premieres were conducted by Koussevitzky. Earlier that same December of 1943, the American composer and conductor Howard Hanson led the orchestra in the first performance of his Symphony No. 4, and on today's date in 1948, the premiere of his own Piano Concerto, with the Boston Symphony and the Czech pianist Rudolf Firkusny as soloist. Like the Martinu Concerto, this, too, was a Koussevitzky Foundation commission. And while we're on the subject of music patrons, we should note that George Eastman, the great Kodak film magnate, was so impressed with Hanson back in the 1920's that he put him in charge of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. |  | Music Played on Today's Program: Additional Information:
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