I can’t say it’s what the composer intended, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Here’s the slow movement of Romeo Cascarino’s Bassoon Sonata – played on theremin and toy piano!

Cascarino, who was born on this date 101 years ago, grew up in an unforgiving neighborhood in South Philadelphia. With a name like Romeo, he had to learn how to use his fists! While navigating the School of Hard Knocks, he taught himself privately, gleaning the mechanics of music theory from books checked out of the Free Library. He was discovered by composer Paul Nordoff, who recognized his genius, and the two formed a bond that was more like a friendship than teacher-student.

While still in his teens, Cascarino was handed a letter from Aaron Copland, inviting him to Tanglewood. Romeo’s father had secretly sent the “Dean of American Composers” some of Romeo’s compositions, and Copland responded with an impressively favorable evaluation. At Tanglewood, upon further examination, Copland said he couldn’t suggest any improvements and that Romeo’s works should remain just as they were.

If you’re interested to know more, I wrote about Cascarino and Copland in further detail last year:

Later, Cascarino served as a professor of composition at Philadelphia’s Combs College of Music. The recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, he labored at his magnum opus, the opera “William Penn,” for the better part of three decades. The work received its premiere at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1982 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city. Metropolitan Opera singer bass-baritone John Cheek sang the title role.

“William Penn” is one of American opera’s best-kept secrets. I’m convinced, if only it had been completed 30 years earlier, it would now be spoken of in the same breath with Carlisle Floyd’s “Susannah” and Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.”

In 2006, a number of Cascarino’s orchestral works were recorded by JoAnn Falletta for the Naxos label. These too are informed by a seductive, twilit beauty.

The Bassoon Sonata was written at the request of Cascarino’s army buddy, Sol Schoenbach, in 1942. The composer made some sketches, but completed the work only after he was discharged. Schoenbach later became principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and recorded the piece for Columbia Records’ “Modern American Music Series.”

This was the not only music to came out of the war. Cascarino composed his plaintive elegy, “Blades of Grass,” in 1945. The title refers to Carl Sandburg’s poem “Grass,” written in 1918, in response to the “Great War.” It seems the work was played by the U.S. Marine Band as recently as last month!

https://www.marineband.marines.mil/News/Article/3502846/playing-americas-music/

Here it is, performed by English hornist Dorothy Freeman and Philadelphia’s Orchestra 2001.

Happy birthday, Romeo Cascarino, wherever you are. Your music endures, even if we have to thank the Marines, and not the Army, for playing it!

Clockwise from left: Cascarino outside the Academy of Music, before a poster of “William Penn;” at Tanglewood with Aaron Copland (Copland standing, arms crossed, center, with Cascarino the big guy holding the cigarette on the right); and Sgt. Cascarino conducting a U.S. Army band