Only minutes left until the return of “Picture Perfect!”
I hope you’ll join me for music from movies appropriate for the Labor Day weekend, including “The Molly Maguires” (by Henry Mancini), “Modern Times” (by Charlie Chaplin and David Raksin), “Metropolis” (by Gottfried Huppertz) and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (by Frank Churchill and Larry Morey).
The mediator between head and hands must be the heart! Join me at 6 p.m. EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network and on wwfm.org.
Who wants to work today? You, you, and you!
Climb aboard this morning and earn your keep, as we listen to music about labor and for the worker in anticipation of Labor Day. This will be an international affair, with Prokofiev’s “Le pas d’acier” (“The Steel Step”), a love story set in a factory, Manuel Rosenthal’s “Les petits métiers” (“The Small Trades”), and Nikolai Medtner’s “Three Hymns in Praise of Toil.”
There will also be two Danish symphonies: Rued Laangaard’s Symphony No. 14, “The Morning,” which culminates in the start of the work day, and Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia espansiva,” concluding with “a hymn to work and the healthy activity of living.”
Naturally, it being an American holiday, we’ll have plenty of music by our native composers, as well, including the construction worker ballet “Skyscrapers” by John Alden Carpenter, Frederick Shepherd Converse’s tone poem about automobile manufacturing, “Flivver Ten Million,” and a suite from that quintessential film about violent longshoremen, “On the Waterfront,” by Leonard Bernstein.
We’ll be busting our hump for the man, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I coulda been somebody; I coulda been a contender, on Classic Ross Amico.
Construction workers seek distraction from their labors with a side trip to Coney Island – right now, we’re listening to the ballet “Skyscrapers” by John Alden Carpenter. In just a few minutes, we’ll have a piano suite celebrating blue collar Brooklyn on a Sunday afternoon, “Sunday in Brooklyn,” by Elie Siegmeister. There will be more music evocative of factory workers, longshoremen, and various other trades, as we look ahead to Labor Day, with a guest appearance by Princeton’s own Paul Robeson, who will sing “Joe Hill.”
It’s music for the working stiff this morning until 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.
Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh…
Today is the birthday of Amilcare Ponchielli. It’s possible you may not know his name, but you certainly know his music, thanks to Allan Sherman and Walt Disney.
Join me this afternoon at 4:00 sharp for his most famous piece, “The Dance of the Hours” from the opera “La Gioconda.” We’ll also have a chance to hear his charming Quartet for Winds with Piano.
Then in the 5:00 hour, among our featured works, we’ll have the so-called “Odense” Symphony, which generated a lot of buzz in the 1980s, when the rediscovered piece (uncovered in Odense, Denmark) was thought to be the creation of one Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
We’ll also celebrate the birthday today of Itzhak Perlman. At some point during the late afternoon, I would like to play his recording of Karl Goldmark’s Violin Concerto in A Minor. I don’t think it has been heard on the station for a little while. We’ll also enjoy a Brahms violin sonata in the 6:00 hour.
But it will be a riot of ostriches, elephants, gators, and hippopotami to begin, as I’ll be doing the heavy lifting from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
Carl Nielsen understood the value of hard work. He grew up, one of twelve children, in a musical family of very limited means. By the time he was accepted into the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, he had already been performing and composing for many years. Like “The Ugly Duckling” of his compatriot Hans Christian Andersen, he emerged from humble origins to become a cherished thing of beauty, embraced as his country’s national composer.
Nielsen described the finale of his Symphony No. 3 as “a hymn to work and the healthy activity of living.” Enjoy it tomorrow morning, as we anticipate the Labor Day weekend with musical salutes to labor and the worker.
Be there with your lunch pail and dungarees, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM. We’re always working hard for your enjoyment, on Classic Ross Amico.
PHOTO: Nielsen breaking a sweat in his workroom, where he completed his Symphony No. 3 in 1911
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