In all, Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki completed eight symphonies, and in 2013, to celebrate his 80th birthday, there appeared a box set of recordings billed as his “complete symphonies,” all conducted by their composer. But while that “complete” set included Symphonies Nos. 1-5 and 7&8, it was missing No. 6. The reason? Although Penderecki had begun work on his sixth symphony years earlier, it remained unfinished when the set was issued.

Fast forward to today’s date in 2017 for the out-of-sequence premiere of Penderecki’s Symphony No. 6, given in China by the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. The venue was apt, since the symphony was subtitled Chinese Poems, and included settings for baritone and orchestra of eight ancient Chinese poems — with a Chinese instrument, the erhu, providing solo interludes.

Curiously, Penderecki chose to set German translations of the Chinese poems, translations published back in 1907 in the same collection Gustav Mahler had sourced for his unnumbered song-symphony Das Lied von der Erde, the Song of the Earth. And it’s probably no coincidence that Penderecki’s Symphony No. 6 sounds very much like he was trying to channel both the spirit and sound world of Mahler’s early 20th century song-symphony into own his 21st-century one.

Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020): Symphony No. 6 (Chinese Poems); Stephan Genz, baritone; Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Sopot; Wojciech Rajski, conductor; Accord ACD-270

If you were a member of the European nobility, the summer of 1798 was a scary time. That revolutionary wild man Napoleon Bonaparte had crushed your armies on land and now word had it his fleet had escaped a British blockade. The possibility that Napoleon would control both land and sea struck terror in many a nobleman’s breast.

During this anxious time Prince Nicholas Esterhazy the Second’s favorite composer Joseph Haydn composed a Latin mass Missa in Angustiis or Mass in Time of Fear. It opens in the key of D minor, the key employed by Mozart for the spookiest scenes in Don Giovanni, an opera that had made a big impression on Haydn at its premiere in Vienna ten years earlier. As Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon put it, in Don Giovanni, 18th century listeners were presented with ”the presence of real fear — nay terror.”

So, when word reached the rattled princes of Europe that British Admiral Nelson had destroyed the French fleet, everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief, and, coincidentally, Haydn ends his Mass in the more optimistic key of D Major.

First performed on today’s date in 1798, Haydn’s work soon came to be known as the Lord Nelson Mass, and in Robbins Landon’s view stands as “arguably Haydn’s greatest single composition.”

Franz Joseph Haydn: Missa in Angustiis (Lord Nelson Mass)

As the season begins, we offer you this Autumn Music — a woodwind quintet by American composer Jennifer Higdon. She said she wanted to write a companion piece to another famous woodwind quintet, Summer Music by Samuel Barber. Higdon’s Autumn Music was commissioned by Pi Kappa Lambda, the national music honorary society, and premiered at their 1994 national convention in Pittsburgh.

“Autumn Music is a sonic picture of the season of brilliant colors. The music of the first part represents the explosion of leaves and the crispness of the air of fall. As the music progresses, it becomes more spare and introspective, moving into a more melancholy and resigned feeling,” she said.

Jennifer Higdon was born in Brooklyn in 1962, and teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her chamber and orchestral pieces have been performed by ensembles coast to coast. She’s also active as a performer and, as she explained, as an enthusiastic member of the audience:

“I love exploring new works — my own pieces and the music of others — in a general audience setting, just to feel a communal reaction to new sounds. Music speaks to all age levels and all kinds of experiences in our lives. I think it can express anything and everything.”

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Autumn Music; Moran Woodwind Quintet; Crystal 754