Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

English Classics Rootham Bloch on WWFM

You know I’m crazy for the English stuff.

Today is the birthday of Cyril Rootham (1875-1938), a classmate at London’s Royal College of Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Rootham is known, if at all, for his choral and vocal music, but a sunny autumn afternoon, I think, is the perfect time to enjoy his disarming “Miniature Suite” for piano and orchestra. Think Gerald Finzi’s “Eclogue.” It’s very much of that ilk.

We’ll also hear Ernest Bloch’s romantic and beautiful orchestral suite, “Three Jewish Poems,” as we continue our musical observance of the High Holy Days.

Tune in between 4 and 7:00 p.m. EDT to enjoy these and more, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: Bloch (top) and Rootham share a smoke

October 5, 2016
Skrowaczewski Birthday Broadcast Bruckner & Ravel

With all the salutes to Sir Neville Marriner, who died on Sunday at the age of 92, it’s easy to overlook the fact that yesterday was the 93rd birthday of conductor and composer Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Interestingly, both Methuselahian maestros served as one-time music directors of the Minnesota Orchestra – as powerful an argument as any for the health benefits of fried food on a stick. Join me this afternoon, as we honor Skrowaczewski with his recordings of Bruckner and Ravel.

First, it will be another Noontime Concert with the Lenape Chamber Ensemble. The program, which was presented on July 23rd at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa., will feature a string trio by Beethoven, the Violin Sonata by Francis Poulenc, and a rarely-heard piano sextet by a 15 year-old Felix Mendelssohn. The Lenape Chamber Ensemble is made up of crackerjack musicians from Philadelphia and New York. You can find out more about the group and its upcoming concerts, the next of which will take place this weekend, at lenapechamberensemble.org.

Tune in today from noon to 4 p.m. EDT. The musical selections will range from chamber works to Bruckner, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

October 4, 2016
Marriner Reich & Rosh Hashanah on WWFM

This afternoon, we’ll remember Sir Neville Marriner, who died yesterday, peacefully, in his sleep, at the age of 92. Impressively, Marriner conducted his final concert in Padua on Thursday. Tomorrow, he was scheduled to begin a tour of Austria, Germany and Belgium with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the orchestra he founded in 1958. We’ll honor this indefatigable musician with a number of his cherished recordings, as well as one or two which are perhaps not so well known.

We’ll also look to American composer Steve Reich, who is 80 years-old today. We’ll hear his Pulitzer Prize winning “Double Sextet,” performed by Eighth Blackbird. If you’re a Steve Reich fan, you’ll want to join David Osenberg for another “Celebrating Our Musical Community,” tonight at 8:00 EDT. He’ll introduce a concert of Reich’s works presented by gifted students and artists-in-residence at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, including members of Eighth Blackbird and Nexus Percussion.

Finally, we’ll include some music in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, including a work for string quartet by Darius Milhaud, based on tunes from High Holy Days liturgies indigenous to the composer’s native Provence.

That’s a lot to cover in only three hours. We’ll do our best to make the New Year sweet, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

October 3, 2016
Remembering Sir Neville Marriner

Adieu, Sir Neville, and thank you for all your wonderful recordings. I cut my teeth on many of them – a cherishable album of Vaughan Williams, featuring Iona Brown in “The Lark Ascending;” Ottorino Respighi’s “The Birds” and “Ancient Airs and Dances” with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a gorgeous Fauré program, including “Pelléas et Mélisande” and “Masques et Bergamasques;” a haunting Scandinavian collection, featuring a spritely “Serenade for Strings” by Dag Wirén.

You were always an alert accompanist in concerto recordings of Murray Perahia and Pepe Romero. You had a firm grasp of Rossini opera. You were a reliable conductor of Haydn and Mozart (your performances with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields were featured on the soundtrack to “Amadeus”). And you understood Virgil Thomson better than Stokowski.

You crammed so much into a very long life (92 years). You performed with Pierre Monteux (who would become your teacher), Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwangler and Henry Wood, for crying out loud. Your last concert was on Thursday!

Way to go, Sir Neville. I will miss you, but I will always, always have your recordings. Thank you again for all the beautiful music.

Sad news: Neville Marriner is gone, at 92

October 2, 2016
Rosh Hashanah & Yom Kippur Music for the High Holy Days

L’shana tova! Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sunset. The two-day observance commences ten Days of Awe, concluding with Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have selections for the Jewish High Holy Days. We’ll hear a string quartet by Jacob Weinberg, dating from 1950. The work falls into three movements, which bear the respective subtitles “Rosh Hashanah,” “Yom Kippur” (the Day of Atonement) and “Sukkot” (the harvest festival).

Weinberg’s “Yom Kippur” is based on the familiar declaration of “Kol Nidrei,” best known to gentiles, probably, through the setting for cello by Max Bruch. Bruch, though not Jewish, always had a good ear for characteristic melodies of different cultures (e.g. the “Scottish Fantasy,” the “Swedish Dances,” the “Suite on Russian Themes,” etc.).

Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek – he of “Donna Diana Overture” fame – was likewise moved by the Yom Kippur melody, on which he wrote a large-scale set of orchestral variations, which we’ll also hear. Interestingly, in contrast to the reverential setting by Bruch, Reznicek puts the theme through a befuddling array of permutations, pivoting back and forth from light to serious. It’s not synagogue music, but it is fascinating.

We’ll conclude the hour with a moving arrangement by Patrick Sinozich of ”Avinu Malkeynu” (“Our Father, Our King”) by Max Janowski, performed by Chicago a cappella.

I hope you’ll join me for “Tones of Atonement,” this Sunday night at 10 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network or at wwfm.org.

PHOTO: The ten Days of Awe are bookended by blasts on the shofar

October 2, 2016

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