Morning Concert:
50th Anniversary of the Concert Societe Musicale Independante

On May 5, 1926 six young American composers who had been working in Paris presented their chamber music to an audience of musicians, intelligentsia, and socialites in the famed Salle Pleyel (or perhaps the nearby Salle Chopin). The concert, arranged by Nadia Boulanger and sponsored by the Societe Musicale Independente, a group which included the most celebrated European composers of the time, gave the French one of their first chances to hear what Americans were capable of musically. The program consisted of the Virgil Thomson's "Sonata da chiesa"; Herbert Elwell's "Nine Piano Pieces"; Aaron Copland's "As It Fell Upon a Day" and two jazz violin pieces, "Nocturne" and "Ukelele Serenade"; Walter Piston's "Piano Sonata"; Theodore Chanler's "Sonata for Violin and Piano"; and George Antheil's "First String Quartet". That program is reproduced here, with Chanler's song cycle "Epitaphs" instead of the sonata, Elwell's "Piano Sonata" instead of the “Nine Piano Pieces”, and Piston's "Concerto for Orchestra" instead of the lost "Piano Sonata". Also heard is an interview with Virgil Thomson in which he reminisces about that memorable evening.