“Happy Birthday” Arranged by…Stravinsky and Copland?!

Occasionally during an orchestra rehearsal, the oboe’s tuning note transforms into a surprise, impromptu rendition of Happy Birthday in celebration of a musician’s birthday. You can find clips of more organized examples for conductors David Robertson and Gustavo Dudamel. (In that last example, notice the distinctly Latin American flavor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra’s rendition).

Interestingly, a few great twentieth century composers put their stamp on Happy Birthday. Undoubtedly, these composers dashed off these lighthearted miniatures quickly and with little thought, yet the music is still strangely captivating.

Igor Stravinsky’s Greeting Prelude was written in 1955 for the eightieth birthday of the conductor, Pierre Monteux. Its witty, cubist menagerie of voices seems to have stepped out of an unwritten movement of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite

Aaron Copland’s 1969 Happy Anniversary was part of a collection of variations honoring the Philadelphia Orchestra’s seventieth anniversary. Copland’s distinct musical voice, evoking wide-open American vistas, comes across as clearly as Stravinsky’s did in the previous example. Around the 0:30 mark, notice the clever way the Happy Birthday motive sneaks into the strings’ contrapuntal line. Here, Seiji Ozawa celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s seventieth birthday at Tanglewood in August, 1988:

Ozawa was the recipient of a similar surprise musical birthday gift at a 1995 Boston Symphony Orchestra concert at Tanglewood. Mstislav Rostropovich and the BSO performed John Williams’ Happy Birthday Variations, which move around the sections of the orchestra in a way that brings to mind Benjamin Britten’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell (also known as The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra):

https://youtu.be/sn7e7ZmcgXo

Le Sacre du printemps: Pierre Monteux and the Boston Symphony (1951)

Let’s return to Stravinsky’s association with the legendary French conductor Pierre Monteux, who served as music director of the Boston Symphony between 1919 and 1924. It was Monteux who conducted The Rite of Spring‘s riot-inducing Paris premiere on May 29, 1913. In an earlier post, we explored the raw, primal power of this ballet score, written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky. According to the Stravinsky writer Robert Craft, Monteux “thought the composer ‘raving mad'” when he began to study The Rite of Spring score at the piano in November, 1912. Among Monteux’s other famous premieres were Stravinsky’s Le rossignol and Petrushka, Debussy’s Jeux, and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé. 

Here is Pierre Monteux’s 1951 mono recording of The Rite of Spring with the Boston Symphony:

https://youtu.be/chLMbWhQuYs

Recordings

  • Stravinsky: Greeting Prelude, Igor Stravinsky, Columbia Symphony Orchestra Amazon
  • Williams: Happy Birthday Variations, John Williams, Recording Arts Orchestra of Los Angeles Amazon
  • Stravinsky: Le Sacre Du Printemps, Pierre Monteux, Boston Symphony Orchestra Amazon

About Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa.

The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States.

A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals.

In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

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