Classic Ross Amico

Reviews

Princeton University Orchestra Punches Above Its Weight

Benchmark Korngold, professional-grade Ginastera, Dvořák and the terror of the sublime. Read more…
Exhumed Vampire and Mummy Fiction for Halloween

I’ve been interested in vintage horror and “weird fiction” for nearly half a century, so I thought I knew a thing or two about vampires. Over and over again, I’ve encountered historical surveys or introductions that repeat that the first vampire story in English was a fragment by Lord Byron. This was undertaken to fulfill Read more…
Friedrich Gernsheim, Brahms’ Brother from Another Mother

If you ever wished Johannes Brahms had written more orchestral music, then Friedrich Gernsheim just might be the gift you’re looking for. Gernsheim, who knew Brahms – the two respected one another and championed one another’s music – shared the master’s conservative, classical-Romantic outlook. Both artists favored traditional forms and structural rigor over a more Read more…
Quaker Notes: S. Weir Mitchell’s “Hugh Wynne”

I’d been meaning to read “Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker” for a good 25 years. Introduced to me by a fellow bibliophile who added much to my knowledge and education in the book trade, “Hugh” was the second best-selling novel of 1898, behind Francis Hopkinson Smith’s “Caleb West, Master Diver,” about the dangerous underwater construction of Read more…
For Classical Music People, “The Marching Band” Gets It Mostly Right

What a delightful surprise this was! My ideal condition for seeing a movie is knowing next to nothing about it, and I walked into this one cold. It’s a French film, released here in the U.S. as “The Marching Band,” which I know is not a direct translation of the original title, “En Fanfare.” There’s Read more…
More Mozart à la Bard

Time to roll up my sleeves and document the rest of my impressions of the first weekend of this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Mozart and His World.” Read more…
Mozart at Bard: Too Many Notes?

“If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.” The Bard Music Festival would put Shakespeare’s Duke Orsino to the test! Read more…
Strauss’ Egyptian Helen Brings Beauty and Befuddlement to Bard College

Some of Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s librettos for Richard Strauss can get pretty oblique. The current production at Bard College doesn’t make it any easier to get to the bottom of things. But its excesses sure are fun. Read more…
Full Disclosure About “Disclosure Day”

John Williams’ soundtrack gives me a lot of pleasure, and moves me in a way the movie most definitely did not. Read more…
Two Butterflies for the Price of One at the Princeton Festival

When Toni Marie Palmertree was unable to sing the title role in “Madama Butterfly” on Friday, soprano Brenna Markey received an eleventh hour promotion. Read more…