Today is the birthday of the American composer George Whitefield Chadwick, born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1854. Chadwick is one of those composers who are generally considered "important," but whose music isn't terribly well known. And, in fact, he wrote lots of music--including symphonies, operas, string quartets, and choral music--some of which has been revived and rediscovered. But Chadwick remains less well known today for what he wrote than for what he was--that rare breed, an accomplished late 19th century American composer of Classical music. Along with Amy Beach, Arthur Foote, Edward MacDowell, John Knowles Paine, and Horatio Parker, Chadwick was one of a group of composers known as the Boston Six. And, if there was no genius of the rank of Tchaikovsky or Debussy among that group, still, what the Boston Six proved was that it was time to take American composers seriously.
This has been A Minute with Miles--a production of South Carolina Public Radio, made possible by the J.M. Smith Corporation.
