In the King Arthur legends, there’s all kinds of adultery, usually achieved by one person tricking another through magic. While everybody knows the famous love triangle of Arthur – Guinevere – Lancelot, fewer know about the directly attached love triangle of Guinevere – Lancelot – Elaine.

It’s all so screwed up. Lancelot is mad because he got tricked into marrying Elaine (NB: make sure you actually look at somebody before you sleep with them); Elaine is mad because Lancelot doesn’t love him (NB: don’t use trickery to get someone in bed); Guinevere is mad because she has to share her lover now (NB: don’t be so greedy); Arthur is mad because he has to pretend not to notice (NB: laws that demand adulterers be put to death can really mess up your family life); Morgause is mad because Arthur’s family has ruined hers (NB: incest is not necessarily the best form of revenge).

Edward MacDowell is one of the first highly-trained American composers. He is one of the Boston Six, the American answer to France’s Le Six or the Russian Mighty Handful: a group of composers who were shaping a national sound for the relatively young country. His tone-poems are on par with the best of the European masters, though they are largely ignored today. MacDowell’s tragic Lancelot and Elaine borrows its sound from the epic musical legends of Wagner.

On this day, in 1945, the first nuclear weapon, codenamed “Trinity“, was detonated in Alamogordo NM, as part of The Manhattan Project. The project’s leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, lived a wild life as magical and worthy of any ancient Norse saga. It’s hard not to read about him without invoking an air of mysticism. For one, the codename “Trinity” came from a devotional poem by John Donne: “As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.” and “Batter my heart, three person’d God.” More than that, Oppenheimer said the bomb test brought to mind words from the Hindu poem, Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

American composer John Adams was commissioned to write an opera titled Doctor Atomic, in which Oppenheimer was to be portrayed as a modern-day Faust. The opera’s text was taken from declassified military and scientific documents, and sacred poetry. This politically edgy opera made quite a scene when it premiered in 2005, and was later performed at the Met (which is a HUGE deal for any contemporary opera.) Adams later adapted a “Dr. Atomic Symphony” for orchestral concert use. Musically, its style incorporates elements of neo-romanticism, film music, and post-minimalism (ok, I admit, I just made up that last word!)

Billy the Kid was not a very nice person. If I saw him on the street, I would run and hide in a barrel. If I saw him on the street wearing a tutu, I would still run and hide, but I’d probably run and hide in a barrel with a hole in it, so I could peek out and watch him dance.

Allegedly, Billy the Kid was shot and killed in the Wild West sometime around midnight on July 14/15, 1881. Afterwards, rumors spread that he was still alive, and numerous people pretended to be him. His life and death quickly became American legends. Fastforward to 1939; Aaron Copland was asked to write a music for ballet based on Billy’s life. Copland’s use of cowboy tunes, along with his own distinct compositional style, were helping to shape the definition of American music (Copland’s influence can be heard in the works of Barber, Williams, and Theofanidis.)

The ballet suite is divided into sections that are easy for any listener to identify:

I. Introduction: The Open Prairie
II. Street in a Frontier Town
III. Prairie Night
IV. Gun Battle
V. Celebration (after Billy’s Capture)
VI. Billy’s Death
VII. The Open Prairie Again