Plenty of world premiere recordings this morning on WPRB, thanks to the Naxos label, as we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Spanish master Enrique Granados. Right now, we’re listening to his “Suite on Galician Songs,” a 30-minute, folk-inflected work for orchestra. In the 8:00 hour, we’ll hear his “Song of the Stars,” a masterpiece gone missing for nearly a century, scored for piano, organ and three choruses. We’ll also have songs, instrumental music, the complete one-act opera “Goyescas,” and the rarely-heard symphonic poem “Dante,” between now and 11 a.m. EDT. We subscribe to the maxim “No Spain, no gain,” on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Granados Casals and Liliana on WPRB
A nice photo of Enrique Granados with his friend Pablo Casals, both evidently (and justifiably) proud of their moustaches. Casals arranged Granados’ lyric poem “Liliana” for concert performance. We’re enjoying it right now, as part of a full morning of Granados’ music, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of his birth, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.
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Marlboro Music: Schumann & Brazilian Composers
This week’s “Music from Marlboro” serves up a Robert Schumann sandwich on Brazilian bread. The hour will open with “Five Songs for Voice and Bassoon” by Francisco Mignone, and conclude with the String Quartet No. 6 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. In between will be the “Andante and Variations” by Schumann, scored for the rather peculiar combination of two pianos, two cellos and horn. The husband and wife team of Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir perform.
I hope you’ll join me for more selections from the Marlboro Music archive, this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
PHOTO: Schumann pianists Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir, married at Marlboro in 1959 (with pianist Eugene Istomin, their best man, standing left)
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Did New Jersey Doom Composer Granados?
Is it just my guilty conscience, or did New Jersey kill Enrique Granados?
The great Spanish composer was persuaded to work his masterful set of piano miniatures, titled “Goyescas,” into an opera by none other than Ernest Schelling (whose birthday, by coincidence, is today). Schelling, born in Belvidere, NJ, was the barnstorming pianist who gave the U.S. premiere of “Goyescas” in its piano guise. He would later become music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
Granados honored Schelling’s suggestion, with the idea of unveiling his new work at the Paris Opera. However, the outbreak of war caused him to shift his focus to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where “Goyescas” received its world premiere on January 28, 1916, opening to enthusiastic reviews.
It was Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University and former governor of New Jersey – then President of the United States – that really did Granados in. The positive reception of “Goyescas” led Wilson to extend an invitation to the composer to come play at the White House, an offer Granados could hardly refuse. As a result, Granados delayed the date of his departure, and a few weeks later, he and his wife were drowned in the English Channel, after their ship, the S.S. Essex, was torpedoed by a German u-boat.
I think New Jersey, and in particular Princeton, owes him something. Therefore, I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we honor Granados on the 150th anniversary of his birth, with a full morning of his music, including an assortment of his rarely-heard orchestral, choral and chamber works, and, yes, his opera “Goyescas.”
We genuflect before one of music’s great moustaches, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It will take plenty of caffeine before I can properly enunciate “sesquicentennial,” on Classic Ross Amico.
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Astral Artists Shine with Shaw & Bruckner on WWFM
Today’s Noontime Concert will come our way courtesy of Philadelphia’s Astral Artists. Astral laureates the Jasper String Quartet will be joined by Annie Wu, flutist, for a program of music by Mozart, Debussy, Takemitsu, Ginastera, and Pulitzer Prize winner (and Princeton University PhD candidate) Caroline Shaw. The concert was recorded in Benjamin Franklin Hall at the American Philosophical Society. Tune in this Tuesday at 12 p.m.
Then stick around for a recent recording of Shaw’s “To the Hands,” her contribution to a project initiated by the Philadelphia-based chorus, The Crossing, which invited seven contemporary composers to come up with musical responses to Dietrich Buxtehude’s 1680 collection, “Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima” (“Most Holy Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus”), often referred to, affectionately, as the “limb” cantatas.
At around 2:00, our featured work will be a symphony by Anton Bruckner, which we’ll hear in a transcendent performance conducted by Sergiu Celibidache.
We’ll go out on a limb today, and more, from noon to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
PHOTO: Composer Caroline Shaw – in 2013, at the age of 30, she became the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music
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