I’m a big fan of classical music trivia, but sometimes it is very difficult to tell if a fact is true, or just hearsay. I’m always happy to find music trivia that is actually true, so here’s one of my favorites:

Do you know the first musical work performed in space? It’s a piece by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. He wrote a series of patriotic songs for a play that never quite materialized, but the songs themselves were published. One of them is called “The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows”.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to travel into space, and orbit the earth. During his two hour voyage sang and whistled the song, making it the first performance in space.

Monday was the birthday of British composer Sir Arthur Bliss. Bliss is an interesting character because he was a very prolific composer, and quite popular, for his time, in England. He experimented with different musical styles while younger, but as he grew older, he moved into a traditional English sound with some choral and pastoral works.

Later in life Bliss became the Director of Music at the BBC, and had a great influence there. He was knighted in 1950, and was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music (a title similar to Poet Laureate, but for music), and held that title from 1953 until his death in 1975.

Despite the accolades, Bliss never really achieved the level of success as a composer that he wished for, and although he had some critical successes, they were never really embraced by the public.

One of his early works is A Colour Symphony, which was his first major orchestral work, and is probably his most well-known piece. It explores the symbolic meaning of different colors and tries to portray that character through the music.

The four movements are:

I. Purple, the colour of Amethysts, Pageantry, Royalty, and Death
II. Red, the colour of Rubies, Wine, Revelry, Furnaces, Courage, and Magic
III. Blue, the colour of Sapphires, Deep Water, Skies, Loyalty, and Melancholy
IV. Green, the colour of Emeralds, Hope, Youth, Joy, Spring, and Victory.

Here is the fourth movement, Green, performed by the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra with Sir Arthur Bliss conducting.

The Utah Opera Costume Shop is hard at work, building the costumes for La Bohème, which will take place in the early 40s. Check out some of these beautiful hats and accessories the characters get to wear!

This week was the birthday of Spanish pianist and composer, Enrique Granados. He wrote in a very nationalistic Spanish style, with great rhythms, lyric melodies, and the influence of zarzuelas. His most famous work is a suite for piano, Goyescas, which was based on paintings of Goya.

Granados died at the relatively young age of 48 during World War I, when the ship he was traveling on was torpedoed. He jumped out of his lifeboat to try and save his wife, but they both drowned.

The second concert conducted by new Music Director Thierry Fischer is up on the BBC Proms website.

The first half features:

Cherubuni: Médée – overture (8 mins)
Schumann: Symphony No.1 in B flat major, ‘Spring’ (32 mins)

The second half is:

Simon Holt: a table of noises (29 mins)
R. Strauss: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (15 mins)

Colin Currie, percussion

BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Thierry Fischer, conductor

This concert is streamed on the BBC Proms website for seven days.

Can you guess what this is?

Dresses! Sixty of them, to be precise. All lined up for fittings and finishing.

These pretty dresses were made by the Utah Opera Costume Shop, for the Utah Symphony Chorus.

And now there’s just waiting for members of the chorus to come in for final fittings. Look for them next season!

Utah Symphony’s new Music Director, Thierry Fischer, is conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in various concerts at The Proms right now. A recording of today’s concert is available on the BBC Proms website for the next seven days.

The concert features Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 1 with Alexander Toradze, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C.

You can listen to the first half of the program here, and the second half of the program here.

I’m a little bit early, but this weekend would be the birthday of Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch, who was born on the 24th of July, 1880.  If you’re not familiar with Bloch’s works, I encourage you to check them out! He wrote absolutely beautiful lush parts for strings, both in his solo works, and orchestral music.

Here’s the first part of his work for cello and orchestra, Schelomo, performed by Rostropovich and the Orchestre Nationale de France conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

And here’s a movement from his Concerto Grosso No. 1 for String orchestra with piano obbligato.

Aram Gharabekian conducts the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia.

So, I was reading earlier today that the national orchestra of Morocco has more members than the army of Morocco.

Really?

Yes!

The national orchestra of Monaco is the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. I don’t know exactly how many members are in the orchestra (it looks to be about 66-70), but since Morocco doesn’t have an army, the orchestra definitely wins!

Something beautiful to start your week off right!

These are two of Musetta’s dresses from Utah Opera’s upcoming production of La Bohème, which is set in 1940’s Paris.