In 1908…

Ethelbert Nevin

[November 2016.]

… Messiaen was born (Dec. 10), Carter was born (Dec. 11).

… Rimsky-Korsakov (66) died (Jun. 21), Sarasate (64) died (Sept. 20).

… Shostakovich was 2, Scelsi and Hartmann were 3, Dallapiccola was 4, Weill and Copland were 8, Ellington was 9, Gershwin was 10, Hindemith was 13, Milhaud was 16, Prokofiev was 17, Grainger was 22, Varèse was 25, de Falla was 32, Scriabin was 36, Busoni was 42, Nielsen was 43, Puccini was 50.

… Berg (23) worked on his Sonata, Op. 1, Webern (25) on his Passacaglia, Op. 1, and Schoenberg (34) on his String Quartet No. 2.

… Stravinsky (26) was under Rimsky-Korsakov’s spell and wrote Fireworks.

… Bartók (27) completed his First String Quartet and Violin Concerto No. 1.

… Respighi (29) wrote the Violin Concerto “In stile antico.”

… Ravel (33) wrote Gaspard de la nuit, Debussy (46) wrote Children’s Corner, Satie (42) wrote Aperçus désagréables.

… Ives (34) married Harmony Twitchell, and worked on his Symphony No. 3 and Piano Sonata No. 1.

… Sibelius (43) completed Swanwhite, and at the end of the year he started his string quartet Voces intimae.

… Strauss (44) worked on Elektra, Zemlinsky (37) on Kleider machen Leute, and Janáček (54) worked on The Excursions of Mr. Broucek and On an Overgrown Path.

… Mahler (48) made his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York with Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (Jan. 1), wrote Das Lied von der Erde, and premiered his Seventh in Prague (Sept. 19).

… Elgar (51) finished his First (premiered Dec. 3), and Rachmaninoff (35) completed his Second (premiered Feb. 8) and wrote The Isle of the Dead.

… Saint-Saëns (73) wrote the score to the film The Assassination of the Duke of Guise.

… Milstein was 4, Piatigorsky and Horowitz were 5, Heifetz was 7, Kempff was 13, Rubinstein was 21, Thibaud was 28, Cortot was 31, Casals was 32, Kreisler was 33, Ysaÿe was 50.

… Scherchen was 17, Furtwängler was 22, Stokowski was 26, Monteux was 33, Koussevitzky was 34, Toscanini was 41, Weingartner was 45, Nikisch was 53.