How laborious it was to put together this morning’s “Sweetness and Light!” Which I suppose is only appropriate, since today’s theme is music for Labor Day.
It’s not uncommon when producing a show that the running time can come up a little long. I try to avoid it, but when it happens, it’s usually remedied with a few snips. But this week I was a full 90 seconds over, which meant trimming my commentary to the bone. It can take a while to whittle it all down.
In the end, I was still 30 seconds over. The rock was high and Classic Amico was so small!
So I had to swap out Aaron Copland’s rarely-heard “John Henry” (at 4 minutes) for something decidedly more “Common” (at about 3:30). If you’re at all familiar with the composer and his output, I think you can deduce what that is.
Another casualty was my fine encapsulation of the essence of John Alden Carpenter’s construction worker ballet “Skyscrapers.” There’s an awful lot of color in that score to convey a few sentences!
“The scenario involves workers in overalls, who struggle to bring order to a confusion of girders and flashing red lights; all around them the hustle and bustle of the city. Eventually the whistle blows. There’s a diverting side-trip to a Coney Island-type amusement park, with its crowds and attractions and popular dance rhythms. Again the whistle blows, and the laborers return to work.”
The music is still there, but I wind up basically saying “here it is.”
Life is full of frustration, folks, but it still beats digging ditches.
I hope you’ll join me for a program that will also include works by George Frideric Handel, Nikolai Medtner, Michael Torke, and Eric Coates, with Princeton’s own Paul Robeson singing Earl Robinson’s labor classic “Joe Hill.” How that’s sweet OR light, I have no idea, but I’m playing it.
As always, I earn my bread by the sweat of my brow. Just in time for breakfast, I’ll be bringing home the bacon, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
IMAGE: One of ten dynamic panels from Thomas Hart Benton’s mural, “America Today” (1930-31). You can click through thumbnails of all of them here:
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