November 5, 2007 - 9 p.m.
Listen to the Podcast (19 MB)
Host Bill McGlaughlin kicks off our new series with music from five stellar concerts at the Library, played by some of the world’s most admired artists. You’ll hear Beethoven and Schumann, a recent work by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage, and a sonata by the founder of the Library’s concert series, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an accomplished pianist and composer.
One of the twentieth century’s great musical philanthropists, she built the Library’s Coolidge Auditorium in 1925 with a gift of $60,000—worth nearly $600,000 today—endowing an extraordinary chamber music series that has flourished for eight decades. This was a groundbreaking public-private partnership for its time, a remarkable gift to the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. Perhaps the most famous of the many Coolidge Foundation commissions was Aaron Copland’s "Appalachian Spring," which premiered here on October 30, 1944, Mrs. Coolidge’s 80th birthday. Listen to the audio clip on the homepage to hear her wish to insert into the government a “little wedge of authority in matters of art… how wonderful if we could have in the cabinet a Secretary of Fine Arts.”
Our opening show also salutes George and Ira Gershwin—celebrated in the new Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded to Paul Simon in May 2007. The Bill Charlap Trio swings in the classic Gershwin tune "S’Wonderful!" and Elmar Oliveira plays the three Gershwin Preludes in an arrangement by Jascha Heifetz—all recorded in the Library’s historic Coolidge Auditorium, an intimate, 500-seat jewel of a concert hall, famous for superb acoustics.
Explore What's Behind the Music
 Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge The manuscript of Mrs. Coolidge’s 1947 Oboe Sonata (excerpt). Other works included a song cycle on Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s "Sonnets from the Portuguese" and a string quartet. View Coolidge Sonata |
 Beethoven's Twelve Variations in F Major An early Viennese edition of Beethoven’s Twelve Variations in F Major, op. 66, for cello and piano, on a theme from Mozart’s opera "Die Zauberflote (Ein Madchen oder Weibchen)". View Beethoven/Mozart Variations |
 Gershwin's Prelude III In the composer’s hand: a manuscript page for prelude III, from George Gershwin’s Three Preludes, for piano solo [George and Ira Gershwin Collection, Library of Congress]. View Gershwin Prelude |
 Jascha Heifetz The phenomenally virtuosic violinist Jascha Heifetz arranged or transcribed many works, including Gershwin’s Three Preludes; excerpt from his holograph arrangement of Prelude III. View Heifetz Arrangement |
Last Updated: 12/20/2007
