He was a painter, a lover of tennis, and a composer of light-hearted cabaret songs. Oh yes! And he also developed the twelve tone technique, which has intrigued musicians and alienated listeners ever since. We’ll peck around his diverse output this afternoon, between noon and 4 p.m. EDT, and try not to frighten the horses too much, on this, Arnold Schoenberg’s birthday, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Respighi’s Queen of Sheba & More
It’s music that’s so over-the-top, Cecil B. DeMille would have blushed.
Join me this afternoon as we get all quasi-biblical, with a suite from Ottorino Respighi’s ballet “Belkis, Queen of Sheba.” The spectacle, set at the court of King Solomon, was given its first performance at La Scala in 1932. The finale featured over a thousand performers, which likely accounts for the work’s subsequent neglect. Grandiose even by Respighi’s standards, the concluding orgiastic dance whipped the opening night audience into a frenzy.
We’ll also hear a Concerto for Winds, Harp and Orchestra by Paul Hindemith, one of his more attractive inventions, which we’ll complement with music by his great Baroque counterpart Georg Philipp Telemann.
The last hour will likely feature at least some English music – because I’m just in that kind of mood.
Listen in, if you’re a little moody yourself, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network or at wwfm.org.
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Wagner’s Lost Symphonies Hear Early Works
If you’ve passed a good deal of your Sunday enjoying Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger” on WWFM, perhaps you would be interested to drop back before bedtime to hear one of his symphonies.
What? Wagner wrote symphonies? That’s right. He took a crack at writing two of them, in a Beethovenian style, before finding his niche as a revolutionary composer of opera.
Wagner’s Symphony in E will be featured tonight on “The Lost Chord,” alongside early attempts at symphonies by Gustav Holst and Claude Debussy – judging from their mature works, three figures perhaps least likely to attempt sonata form. Impetuous youth!
Tune in, if you’re still up for it, this Sunday night at 11:00 EDT – one hour later than usual, thanks to the outrageous length of the opera – for “Bold Heads on Young Shoulders,” on WWFM – The Classical Network and on wwfm.org.
IMAGES: Symphonies by the young (clockwise from left) Wagner, Holst and Debussy will be heard tonight on “The Lost Chord”
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WRTI New Releases Temple Wind Symphony Concertos
I’ll be sitting in for Mark Pinto for “New Releases” this afternoon on WRTI.
Following close on the heels of the San Francisco Opera broadcast of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” (which will conclude at around 3:40 EDT), I’ll be presenting music from the album “Wind Concerti,” recently issued on the BCM+D label – the resident label of Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance – featuring contemporary American wind and brass concertos performed by the Temple University Wind Symphony with members of The Philadelphia Orchestra and faculty from the Boyer College.
The 2-CD set, which includes music by Anthony Plog, Joel Puckett, Jennifer Higdon, David Maslanka, and Adam Silverman, is a delight, and I can’t wait to share some of it with you. We’ll hear Jay Krush’s Concerto for Bass Trombone, a wholly engaging vehicle for an instrument rarely given such an opportunity to shine. The soloist will be Blair Bollinger of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Krush, whose own instrument is the tuba, is a founding member of the Chestnut Brass Company, with which he has performed for 36 years. He’s an artist in residence at the Boyer College. He also conducts the Temple University Contemporary Music Ensemble. Krush has composed over 70 works of his own, including two symphonies.
I hope you’ll join me for that and more, until 5 p.m., at which time I will turn things over to Kile Smith and Jack Moore for this month’s edition of “Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection” and music of Enrique Granados. Find out more about it here:
http://wrti.org/post/enrique-granados-had-just-conquered-america
Tune in to WRTI, in Philadelphia at 90.1 FM, or online at wrti.org.
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Jay Krush Trombone Concerto WRTI Philly
Playing right now: Jay Krush’s Concerto for Bass Trombone, with Blair Bollinger of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Temple University Wind Symphony. I’ll be spinning the new releases until 5 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 FM and at wrti.org.
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