Happy New Year!
The songwriter Frank Loesser may be best known for creating the music and lyrics for the 1950 Broadway musical, Guys and Dolls. Three years before that show opened, Loesser wrote the stand-alone song, What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? It has been recorded by countless performers- The Orioles, Nancy Wilson, Ella Fitzgerald, and Barbra Streisand, to name a few. This 1947 recording featuring Margaret Whiting was the first. The photo, above, taken in Times Square the same year, captures the energy and atmosphere of the time.
A Snapshot of Music Across 400 Years
2018 will mark the following anniversaries:
1918
Notable completed works:
- String Quartet No. 1, Symphonic Variations, Arnold Bax
- D’un matin de printemps, Lili Boulanger
- A Song Before Sunrise, Frederick Delius
- Pan and Syrinx, Carl Nielsen
- Il trittico, Giacomo Puccini
- Histoire du Soldat, Igor Stravinsky
- Songs of an infatuated Muezzin for soprano and orchestra, 3 Caprices de Paganini, Karol Szymanowski
Births: Leonard Bernstein, George Rochberg, Leonard Rose, Ruggiero Ricci, Sixten Ehrling, Henryk Szeryng
1818
Notable completed works:
- Symphony No. 6, Franz Schubert
- Piano Sonata in B flat “Hammerklavier” Op.106, Ludwig van Beethoven
Births: Charles Gounod
1718
Notable completed works:
- Esther, George Frideric Handel
- Scanderbeg, Antonio Vivaldi
- l trionfo dell’onore, Telemaco, Alessandro Scarlatti
1618
Notable completed works:
- Concerti, vol. 1, Gregorio Allegri
- Andromeda (lost), Claudio Monteverdi
Births: Solomon Eccles