So as not to completely neglect Luciano Pavarotti on the anniversary of his birth, here he is charming the pants off an audience, with an anecdote about being caught without his. I really miss this guy, one of classical music’s last superstars. Pavarotti died in 2007 at the age of 71.
Pavarotti in “Yes, Giorgio” (1982) – from the director of “Patton!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUSC2MUAp5Y
With all due respect, Pavarotti with goats:
Today is the eve of Yom Kippur. The holiest day on the Jewish calendar begins at sunset. Join me this afternoon for Enest Bloch’s moving “Israel Symphony,” David Stock’s “Yizkor,” and a setting of “Kol Nidre.” They’ll be part of the usual mix, between noon and 4 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
Get ready for the old switcheroo!
Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, so Marvin Rosen and I will be switching up on WPRB. For this week only, Classic Ross Amico will be heard on Wednesday, beginning at 6 a.m., and Marvin’s Classical Discoveries will be heard on Thursday, beginning at 5:30.
I hope you’ll join me tomorrow, as October 12 is the birthday of one of my favorite composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams. The widely held perception of RVW as a large, rumpled, bushy-eyebrowed bear-of-a-man roaming the English countryside in search of folk material will be offset somewhat as we hear some of his lesser-played symphonies, in fabulous, under-the-radar performances.
Don’t expect the same old, same old. Sure, there will be plenty of the pastoral stuff we all know and love, but I will be more inclined to play the underexposed “Charterhouse Suite” or “Household Music” on Welsh hymn tunes than, say, the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” or “The Lark Ascending” – lest it be in a moment of weakness, by way of an historic recording, or in honor of the late Sir Neville Marriner, who conducted on one of my favorite Vaughan Williams albums.
We’ll have a chance to hear Vaughan Williams himself conduct, some archival radio broadcasts, and a rare LP from 1977 that, to my knowledge, has never been reissued in any form. I hope also to touch on some of the composer’s operas and piano music and anything else I can think of that never gets done – whatever I can cram to into five hours, I suppose.
I’ve been letting my eyebrows grow wild for the occasion. Join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wrpb.com. I’ll be wearing my most rumpled jacket, with cowpats on my shoes, on Classic Ross Amico.
PLEASE NOTE: The WPRB Pledge Drive will commence this Thursday night at 7:00. Please start searching under your seat cushions for change and keep your eyes open for those quarters when you vacuum your car. You’ll want to have $45 in hand, I’m sure, on the morning of October 20, when I’ll be offering dozens of CDs for you to choose from as “thank you” gifts for your pledges of support. Of course, a pledge in any amount will be gratefully accepted – every little bit counts – but wouldn’t you like a nice disc for yourself to commemorate the occasion? I’ll have more on this as the week unfolds. By all means, support your favorite shows in the meantime, but spare a thought for me, won’t you, waiting, all lonely at the finish line, next Thursday. The last thing I want to do is walk home with all these duplicate CDs. Call 609-258-1033 on the morning of October 20, and thank you in advance for your generosity!
Sons of Italy (clockwise from left): Columbus, Creston and Verdi
Even under the most unspeakable circumstances, he continued to be Viktor.
Viktor Ullmann was one of the best-known composers to be interned in Terezin, or Theresienstadt, the “model camp” set up by the Nazis to deceive the foreign press and the International Red Cross.
There, concert orchestras, chamber groups and jazz ensembles were formed. Operas were staged, and the Verdi Requiem was mounted no less than fourteen times. At Terezin, composers continued to create, until deportation to Auschwitz.
Ullmann wrote in 1944, “…that musically I have been challenged not hindered by Theriesenstadt, that we did not just sit by Babylon’s rivers bewailing our fate, and that our will to create culture was as strong as our will to live.”
We’ll be listening to a cross-section of Ullmann’s music written in the camp, including a piano sonata (performed by Terezin survivor Edith Kraus, who died in 2013 at the age of 100), a concert overture and a song cycle; also, a piano concerto written shortly before his arrest, a period of hardship for the composer, as he began to be stripped of his rights and his options to make a living. He never heard the concerto performed in his lifetime. Ullmann died at Auschwitz in 1944.
Ironically, most of his unpublished works dating from before his internment are lost. It is his music written at Terezin, for the most part, which survives. The music written during his confinement, then, becomes a metaphor for the indomitable spirit of the artist.
The composer lives on through his works, on “Ullmann Victorious.” You can hear it tonight at 10 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network or at wwfm.org.
To enhance your appreciation of Ullmann’s “Der Mensch und sein Tag” (“Man and His Day”), I am posting English translations of the aphoristic texts below, so that they may be read while listening to the music.
“DER MENSCH UND SEIN TAG” (MAN AND HIS DAY), Op. 47
12 Portraits by Hans-Günter Adler
WALK INTO MORNING
Sight. Hands in front of eyebrows
and maternal light. Meadowland.
A blade of grass. A step. Dew on the flowers.
SONG
So much. So much and still more.
A great ocean, surging and pounding –
flutes lightly, horns heavily.
HOME
In the ground, the cool ground. So colourful.
Billowing fields and meadows around.
In the ground – hidden heart and mouth.
TO THE BELOVED
With you, in smiles and tears.
Nearness of hand and mouth. Longing
fades. With you no blind fancy.
FLOWERS
Inward, buried deep and warm.
Breath – singing to life.
Bright goblets, lips, tongues.
IN THE PARLOUR
Tightly pressed to one another.
Planted with care and trouble.
Animate and inanimate. Mute and loud.
THE NEIGHBOUR
Help is good. Hand in hand.
Door to door and wall to wall:
quite united. Bond and band.
PRAYERS
Scattered in the chalice of piety
ripe corn offered
to the gladdened protector and creator.
IN THE FOREST
Dappled, close and far and scent.
The sun dreams, the air slumbers.
Crepitation. Calcification. Trees. Scent.
FADE
Down, down. The bell tolls.
Clouds glow. Evening glimmers.
Down, down. The moon-breath shimmers.
NIGHT
Come, gentle sleep! Come, sweet night!
The ground relaxes in muted glory.
Lone thoughts sink to earth.
SILENCE
Stillness. Silence. Looking and watching.
Tranquil in blessed reflection.
Sleep before the divine.
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