#ClassicsaDay #Classical1924 Week 1

 It's become an annual tradition. For the first month of the new year, the Classics a Day team looks back a century. So the challenge for January 2024 is to post performances of classical works that were either composed, premiered, or first recorded in 1924.

It turns out 1924 was a landmark year for classical music. Here are my posts for the first week of #Classical1924.

01/02/24 George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue

The first version of this work premiered on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, NYC. It was part of "An Experiment in Modern Music" Concert. Gershwin was the soloist.

01/03/24 Julian Carrillo: Preludio a Colón

Carillo premiered this work in a February 15th, 1924 concert in Mexico City. It featured the Grupo Sonido 13, an ensemble specializing in microtonal music -- the "13th Sound" of Carrillo's system.

01/04/24 Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7

Sibelius began this work in 1914, and completed it ten years later, in 1924. It premiered that year under the title "Fantasia sinfonica No. 1."

01/05/24 Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto NO. 2 in G minor

Prokofiev completed the original Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1912, but the score was lost. He reconstructed the work a decade later. It was premiered in Paris with Serge Koussevitzky conducting.