Historical Events of March 20
20 March
** 1768 - Luigi Boccherini makes his official Parisian debut
(Salle des Suisses in the Palais des Tuileries)
** 1912 - on this day a performance took place at the Wigmore Hall, London, featuring Pablo Casals cello and Elly Ney piano
** 1914 - birth of Martin Bochmann (Großdeuben, nr. Leipzig, Germany) d.1983
cellist, orchestra principal cello, professor {later based England} - father of composer/cellist Christopher and violinist Michael.
Principal cello Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Principal cello NWDR Orchestra. Professor Cologne and Düsseldorf conservatories. Member The Collegium Pro Arte. Professor Turkish State National Conservatoire, Ankara. Professor of cello, Reading University. Principal cello Cheltenham Chamber Orchestra.
** 1915 – birth of Sviatoslav Richter (Zhitomir, Russian Empire, now Ukraine) d.1997
Russian famed pianist who was also – according to ‘Cello Musuem’ – a “passable” cellist!
** 1920 - Arthur Williams was solo cellist, with violinist Jelly D'Aranyi in Brahms - Double Concerto for violin and violoncello, Op. 102, with The Reid Orchestra conducted by Professor Donald Francis Tovey, at the McEwan Hall (Edinburgh). Also, in the programme were works of Dvorak, Beethoven and Mozart.
** 1920 - Mila (Mildred) Wellerson made her official solo debut at the Carnegie Chamber Music Hall on this day, as well as giving several other important concerts that year, including at Aeolian Hall and at the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall, in which she played her own composition Lullaby (The Cranky Baby).
** 1920 - Felix Salmond gave the second performance of the new Elgar - Cello Concerto in Manchester on 20th March 1920, with the Hallé Orchestra being conducted by Albert Coates, the same conductor as in the supposed first performance failure (but this is now put into question thanks to grand investigative work by Tully Potter)
** 1924 - cellist Gerard Hekking performed as soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, in Saint-Saëns – Cello Concerto No.1, Op.33. Five concerts, in Amsterdam (18th and 20th March, and 9th October(^^)), in Den Haag (11th October(^^)) and Rotterdam (15th October(^^)), conducted by Karl Muck and Pierre Monteux(^^)
** 1931 – Gregor Piatigorsky gave his first performances in Los Angeles. Billed as "The Russian Casals", on 19th March Piatigorsky played chamber music with a local quartet made up of Los Angeles Philharmonic players at the Biltmore Hotel, which was just across the street from Philharmonic Auditorium. The next night, he was soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Haydn Concerto conducted by Artur Rodzinski.
** 1932 - a ‘Professor Tovey's Sunday Concert’ at Edinburgh University featured Guilhermina Suggia - cello and D.F. Tovey - piano. They performed a mammoth all-Beethoven programme consisting of: Sonata in G minor, Op.5, No.2, Sonata in C Major, Op.102, No.1, Sonata in D Major, Op.102, No.2, and Sonata in A Major, Op.69
** 1938 - Maurice Maréchal (cello) and Irmgard Mietusch (piano) gave a recital in Berlin.
** 1940 - in the National Gallery, London, a recital was given by Florence Austral (vocal) and Mischel Cherniavsky (cello), accompanied by Gerald Moore.
** 1959 - Martinu finishes (in the space of one week) his ‘Variations on a Slovak folk melody’, for cello and piano
** 1963 - at the Bishopsgate Institute (London) the City Music Society concert invited William Pleeth (cello), Owen Brannigan (bass) and Edmund Rubbra (piano) to give a recital that included works of Rubbra - Cello Sonata, Op.60 and ‘Three Psalms’, Op.61
** 1994 - cellist Heinrich Schiff performed as soloist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, in Strauss – Don Quixote, Op.35. Concert in Paris, conducted by Mariss Jansons
** 1998 – at Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra subscription concerts (on 20th and 21st March), cellist Wolfgang Herzer played as soloist in Bruch – Kol Nidrei, Op.47. Orchestral music of Haydn and Franz Schmidt was also heard. Conductor: Franz Welser-Moest / Musikverein, Golden Hall, Vienna
