Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Neo Baroque Music on WPRB

Old is the new “new.” This is no reflection on retired Princeton University professor Paul Lansky, beyond the fact that later on in this hour we’ll be listening to his delightful work for guitar, the “Semi-Suite,” the movements of which take their names from Baroque dance forms. We’ll also have a Baroque-inflected suite for violin and piano by Henry Cowell, and a charming reworking of a favorite piece of Bach by Percy Grainger.

It’s music of the Neo-Baroque – as 20th and 21st century composers look back to the 18th century – this morning until 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com.

October 8, 2015
Neo-Baroque Music Autumn WPRB

Something about autumn puts me in the mind of Baroque music (and Brahms). However, since the Baroque isn’t really my area of expertise – and since, therefore, a lot of it starts to sound the same to me – I thought I’d devote my program tomorrow morning on WPRB to music of the NEO-Baroque.

Some of it will consist of pastiches by 20th and 21st century composers dressed up in antique clothing; a lot of it will assimilate Baroque forms while remaining decidedly of our time. In addition, there will be variations on Baroque themes and tributes to Baroque masters.

Not a lot to do about the hankering for Brahms, unless I break down and play his “Handel Variations.” I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. I’ll be donning the powdered wig and giggling bwoo-hoo-hoohoohoo, on Classic Ross Amico.

October 7, 2015
Yo-Yo Ma Kennedy Center Honor Colbert Tribute

You may have seen my post yesterday about Yo-Yo Ma on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It just so happens that Colbert paid tribute to Ma in 2011, when the cellist received a Kennedy Center Honor. Watch it here:

Happy 60th, Yo-Yo Ma!

PHOTO: Ma with fellow Kennedy Center Honorees (clockwise) Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond, Barbara Cook and Sonny Rollins

October 7, 2015
Karol Szymanowski: Seductive & Dangerous Music

Arguably the most important Polish composer of his generation, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) absorbed the musical influences of Richard Strauss, Alexander Scriabin and Claude Debussy, and then put them through his own creative refinery. Listening to Szymanowski can be a bit like submerging oneself too long in a hot bath – the same low blood-pressure, the increased heart rate, the wooziness. Though the harmonies and melodies suggest the familiar patterns of tonality, the traditional framework has been almost wholly eaten away by the hothouse atmosphere. The music is seductive and dangerous, and one risks being overcome by languor, even as one is overrun by fast-growing vegetation. It may be in poor taste to suggest that so much humidity was bad for the acute tuberculosis that eventually claimed him at the age 55.

Even so, happy birthday, Karol Szymanowski!

Symphony No. 2 (1910):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OMjbIdQBjc

Symphony No. 3 “Song of the Night” (1914):

PHOTO: Languid Szymanowski

October 6, 2015
Yo-Yo Ma & Misty Copeland on Late Show

Thank you, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, for bringing not just Yo-Yo Ma, but Misty Copeland to late night television. Has a cultural figure been given so much air time on network TV since the days of Johnny Carson? Ma sat in with the band all night, playing Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” Gershwin’s “Prelude No. 1” and a jazzy rendition of Saint-Saëns’ “The Swan,” with ample plugs from Colbert for Ma’s new album, “Songs from the Arc of Life.”

If you missed it, here are a few highlights, including two and half minutes of Bach for unaccompanied cello (if you don’t count the dancing):

http://time.com/4062685/misty-copeland-yo-yo-ma-late-show/

I don’t expect it to change the late night landscape, but how nice to see something elevating on television for a change. It makes me feel good about the world for a few minutes.

October 6, 2015

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS