Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Easter Music on WPRB Holy Week Special

It’s wholly works for Holy Week this morning, or just about.

I hope you’ll join me on WPRB for 500 years of Easter music, ranging from Richard Davy’s “Stabat Mater” (1490) through Osvaldo Golijov’s “La Pasión según San Marcos” (2000). In between, we’ll also enjoy reflective (and occasionally bombastic) works by Gregorio Allegri, William Alwyn, George Frideric Handel, Franz Liszt, Victor de Sabata, Ottorino Respighi, Edmund Rubbra, John Tavener, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

At 9:00, we’ll take a break for a special visit from Douglas Martin, artistic director of American Repertory Ballet, and Marc Uys, executive director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. They’ll drop by to talk about Martin’s new ballet, “Pride and Prejudice,” which sets the classic novel by Jane Austen to music by Ignaz Pleyel. The PSO will provide live musical accompaniment for the dancers, at McCarter Theatre Center on April 21 & 22.

Otherwise, we’ll make a habit of the rabbit, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be putting all my eggs in one basket, on Classic Ross Amico.

April 13, 2017
ARB Ballet & PSO Pride and Prejudice on WPRB

Dropping by the WPRB studios at 9:00 EDT will be Douglas Martin, artistic director of American Repertory Ballet, and Marc Uys, executive director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. They’ll tell us a little bit about Martin’s new ballet, “Pride and Prejudice,” which sets the classic novel by Jane Austen to music by Ignaz Pleyel. The PSO will provide live musical accompaniment for the dancers, in its world premiere performances at McCarter Theatre Center on April 21 & 22.

Listen this morning at WPRB103.3 FM or at wprb.com.

April 13, 2017
Mozart’s “Miserere” Saved From Silence

You can thank Mozart for what we are about to receive.

Gregorio Allegri composed his setting of Psalm 51 (50), “Miserere mei, Deus” – or “Miserere,” for short – in the 1630s. The piece was designed for exclusive performance in the Sistine Chapel, as part of the Tenebrae service of Holy Wednesday and Good Friday.

The work is conceived for two choirs, one intoning a simple chant, and the other, spatially separated, providing ornamentation. The effect of a stratospheric top C makes the “Miserere” one of the most haunting works in the choral literature of the late Renaissance.

The Vatican, realizing it had a good thing, forbade performance of the piece or copies of the score outside its walls, under threat of excommunication. It was the 14 year-old Mozart who in effect liberated the piece, copying it down from memory and handing it off to author and music historian Charles Burney, who published it without delay.

Mozart was summoned before the Pope, and rather than being excommunicated, he was showered with praise for his feat of musical genius. The ban on the “Miserere” was lifted.

Hear it today, alongside a concerto for two pianos, a bell song, and some zarzuela romanzas, of all things, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 12, 2017
Holy Week Music on WPRB

Have you got a passion for Passions? Do you think Stabat Maters matter? Tune in to WPRB this Thursday morning for music for Holy Week. That’s right, it’s wholly music for Passiontide.

Well, not wholly. We’ll have some selections of a broadly mystical nature (William Alwyn’s harp concerto, “Lyra Angelica,” for instance), works of a meditative bent (for example, John Tavener’s “Song of the Angel”), and perhaps a couple of pieces concerning hope and renewal (such as Edmund Rubbra’s “Resurgam Overture”).

Otherwise, it will be music inspired by the Passion story, ranging roughly from Palm Sunday through, possibly, the observance of Russian Easter. Some of it will be purely orchestral (Victor de Sabata’s “Gethsemani”) and some will include vocal soloists and chorus (Osvaldo Golijov’s Latin-inflected “La Pasión según San Marcos”).

In addition, a certain listener has been requesting Eugene Ormandy’s recording of Respighi’s “Church Windows” since June, probably. Now seems as good a time as any to blast that out. For my own edification, I have to play Vaughan Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs,” with the great John Shirley-Quirk. It just isn’t Easter for me without the “Five Mystical Songs.”

At 9:00, we’ll take a break from Holy Week for a special visit from Douglas Martin, artistic director of American Repertory Ballet, and Marc Uys, executive director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra. They’ll drop by to talk about Martin’s new ballet, “Pride and Prejudice,” which sets the classic novel by Jane Austen to music by Ignaz Pleyel. The PSO will provide live musical accompaniment for the dancers, at McCarter Theatre Center on April 21 & 22.

This is a radio show, not a church service, so nobody freak out if an “Alleluia” or a “Gloria” slip into the mix, okay? We’re here to celebrate the music, not to scrupulously observe the minutiae of tradition. I’ll be lining the CD cases with Easter grass, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com, and wishing you peace, hope, and happiness, on Classic Ross Amico.

April 12, 2017
Passover Oratorio on The Classical Network

Chag Sameach!

Join me today on The Classical Network, following the noontime concert (which will conclude around 1:40), to enjoy a complete recording of the Passover oratorio “Haggadah shel Pesach,” by German-Jewish composer Paul Dessau.

Dessau was a successful theatrical musician, who worked both in opera, as an assistant to Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter, and with cinema orchestras. However, in 1933, with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany, living conditions became intolerable for Dessau, who fled to Paris, and then the United States. He settled in Hollywood in 1943. Later, in 1948, he returned to East Berlin, where he taught at the Staatliche Schauspielschule (Public Drama School) and became vice president of the Academy of Arts.

While in exile in Paris, Dessau composed “Haggadah del Pesach,” on a libretto by Max Brod. Brod is probably best known as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka. Since neither Dessau nor Brod were fluent in Hebrew, they enlisted the help of Rabbi Mordecai Langer to assist with translation.

Read at the Passover Seder, the Haggadah relates the story of Exodus and explains the Passover rituals. Brod interpolates additional texts from the Torah, Talmud, and Midrash. The oratorio describes “The Feast of Passover,” “Moses Slays the Egyptian,” “The Girls by the Well,” “The Saving of the Girls,” “Chorus,” “The Entrance of Pharoah,” “The Plagues,” “The Slaying of the First-Born,” “Midnight Hymn,” and “Israel’s Departure from Bondage to Freedom.”

Between Parts I & II of “Haggadah shel Pesach” (around 2:30), we’ll chat with Joe Miller, director of choral activities at Westminster Choir College. He’ll drop by to tell us a bit about two performances by the Westminster Choir and New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Anthracite Fields.” The concerts will take place on April 21 & 22 at Roebling Wire Works in Trenton. This is shaping up to be the event of the season, so I hope you’ll listen in for my conversation with Joe.

Of perhaps related interest, the noontime concerts today and Thursday will comprise a retrospective of Victoria Bond’s Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival from Symphony Space, now in its 20th year. Tune in today to hear music by Pauline Oliveros, Brian Ferneyhough, Harold Meltzer, Kyle Gann, Joan Tower, and Bond herself.

Whether your taste runs to maror or charoset, there will be something for everyone, I hope, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

UPDATE: I just received notification that Joe Miller is unable to make it for the interview today, so I’ll be starting the oratorio at 2 p.m.

April 11, 2017

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