Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony: A Missed Ending?

I stated in an earlier post that there should be an organ in Tchaikovsky’s “Manfred Symphony.” And while an organ is certainly featured in many performances and recordings of the work, it turns out the composer actually called for a harmonium. Live and learn.

That said, last night’s otherwise superb performance by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra of this sublime work (in my opinion, one of Tchaikovsky’s most compelling; then again, I’m a fan of Byron’s dramatic poem, overheated film scores, and Romantic seething in general), reverted to the outmoded practice of ditching the reflective denouement (with organ/harmonium) in favor of reprising the powerfully intense coda of the work’s first movement. (Richardson Auditorium’s pipe organ, installed in 1910, has been out of commission for three quarters of a century.) No redemption for this Manfred. I’m pretty sure Tchaikovsky wouldn’t have been happy, but I loved it all the same.

I confess I also missed the fire of Jeremy Levine’s blazing timpani (Levine had the weekend off, but it turns out had to be called back in as a substitute on the cataclysmic bass drum), which would have pushed this “Manfred” as far over the top as this glorious score deserves.

At the other end of the spectrum, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, as immaculate as a Fabergé egg (though not at the expense of heart and humanity, especially in the Baroque arioso throwback of the work’s third movement), was more than mere icing on the cake – an apt metaphor, it turns out, for a program in celebration of music director Rossen Milanov’s 60th birthday. The soloist was Leila Josefowicz, well-toned in both senses of the word. It’s always a privilege to hear a concerto like this one in such an intimate hall.

The concert will be repeated at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this afternoon at 4:00. Both works are comparative rarities. As predicted, for me, this proved to be one of the highlights of the season. Miss it to your own detriment.

https://princetonsymphony.org/

PSO staff photo

January 12, 2025
Nordic Music Delights Sweetness and Light

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s a program of lighter music from the northern countries.

We’ll give poor overworked Edvard Grieg a break, with Norway represented by Johan Halvorsen and the now lesser-known pianist-composer Agathe Backer Grøndahl, a pupil of Franz Liszt.

From Sweden, we’ll enjoy two versions of Hugo Alfvén’s evergreen “Swedish Rhapsody No. 1” – first, Mantovani’s popular hit from 1953, then with the composer himself conducting, from the very next year, in the first stereo recording ever made in Sweden.

Speaking of popular hits, we’ll also hear Arthur Fiedler’s bestselling recording of “Jalousie,” by Danish composer Jacob Gade (no relation to Niels Wilhelm Gade), from 1935. Fiedler remade it in stereo, but it’s my show, so I’m keeping it hardcore.

Also from Denmark, we’ll have a folk-music suite by Percy Grainger. Ah! But Grainger was not from the north, you say. He was born in Australia. Quite true. However, as an energetic pianist and composer of insatiable curiosity, he traveled seemingly everywhere, with a particular fondness for the Scandinavian countries. (His wife was Swedish.)

But if authentic Danish composers are more your thing, not to worry, we’ll round out the hour with a galop by Hans Christian Lumbye.

All eyes and ears face north this week on “Sweetness and Light.” I hope you’ll join me for this hour of northern “lights,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 11, 2025
Australian Composers on Lost Chord Radio

It’s summer in Oz. This week on “The Lost Chord,” escape to the Land Down Under, for an hour of music from Australia.

Alfred Hill was born in Melbourne in 1870, but spent much of his early life in New Zealand. He studied abroad at the Leipzig Conservatory and played second violin in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, under then-kapellmeister Carl Reinecke. He also performed in concerts conducted by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Max Bruch.

Over the course of his career, Hill founded, and/or pushed for, important institutions in both Australia and New Zealand, including one devoted to Maori studies. He composed more than 500 works, among them 12 symphonies, 8 operas, numerous concerti, a mass, 17 string quartets, two cantatas on Maori subjects, and 72 piano pieces. We’ll hear one of his brief-though-atmospheric tone pictures, “The Moon’s Golden Horn.”

Then we’ll turn to Peter Sculthorpe, who was born in Tasmania in 1929. Sculthorpe studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Following a period of post-graduate struggles, he won a scholarship to study with Egon Wellesz at Oxford University. Unfortunately, he had to abandon his doctoral studies when his father fell gravely ill. In 1963, Sculthorpe became a lecturer at the University of Sydney, where he remained, more or less, until his death in 2014.

He was one of Australia’s most-honored composers. Much of his music is concerned with Australia and its South Seas environs. The inspiration for many of his works over the decades was his admiration for, and affinity with, Australia’s indigenous cultures. Major philosophical concerns included conservation and the preservation of the environment.

We’ll listen to “Earth Cry,” an evocative piece from 1986. Scored for didgeridoo and orchestra, the work is a plea for balance, suggestive of the Aborigine mindset of living in accordance with natural law and the needs of the land.

Colin Brumby was born in Melbourne in 1933. Like Sculthorpe, he attended the Melbourne Conservatorium, before studying abroad – in his case, in Spain and London – then joined the staff of the music faculty at the University of Queensland. For a few years, he directed the Queensland Opera Company. He received his doctorate from the University of Melbourne, and then returned to Europe for further studies in Rome. In 1981, he received an Advance Australia Award for his services to music. He composed orchestral pieces, music for the stage, choral, chamber and instrumental works, until his death in 2018.

If you love the concertos of Sergei Rachmaninoff, you owe it to yourself to hear Brumby’s Piano Concerto No. 1, from 1984. The work is written in the grand romantic style for a former classmate of some 30 years earlier, the pianist Wendy Pomroy. The piece certainly is a throwback to an earlier age and an unremitting delight.

Slip another shrimp on the barbie, crack open a Foster’s, and join me for “Left Out Back,” neglected music from Australia, on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 11, 2025
Macy’s Philly Closing Organ’s Fate Uncertain

Philadelphia’s Macy’s will close. I could care less about the business, which was but a wraith lurking in distant shadows cast by the glory days of the Department Store. However, the space also happens to house the world’s largest fully functional pipe organ. Originally built for the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, the instrument was tripled in size when brought to Philadelphia by John Wanamaker, the better to suit the grandeur of his new department store at 13th and Market Streets, then regarded as an architectural marvel.

The organ quickly gained international renown. Marcel Dupré, Louis Vierne, and Nadia Boulanger all played on it. The Philadelphia Orchestra ventured from the Academy of Music and later the Kimmel Center to perform concerts with it. Among the music written specifically for the instrument is Joseph Jongen’s “Symphonie Concertante,” which must be one of the most frequently played large-scale works for organ and orchestra in existence.

The organ is historically protected, but will anyone be able to hear it? Moreover, will whatever entity takes over the space be legally bound to maintain it? The Wanamaker Friends and Fans Facebook page urges everyone to rein in the negativity and cynicism, as all parties work diplomatically and professionally toward a satisfactory transition to whatever it is the future may hold for this irreplaceable civic and cultural asset.

January 10, 2025
Miss Marple Before Lansbury Movie Music

Before Angela Lansbury, there was Margaret Rutherford.

Rutherford played Miss Marple in a series of Agatha Christie adaptations scored by Ron Goodwin. Goodwin’s music for “Murder, She Said” (1961) will be among the selections on this week’s “Picture Perfect,” an hour of wry mysteries and thrillers featuring the sound of the harpsichord.

In the first of the Marple films, Rutherford’s amateur sleuth goes undercover as a domestic servant. Goodwin’s Miss Marple theme became a popular hit, which you may still recognize.

Bette Davis enjoyed something of a comeback following her turn in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” opposite Joan Crawford. The film singlehandedly defined a subgenre which has been variously described as “psycho-biddy,” “hag horror,” “hagsploitation,” and “grande dame guignol.” Camp and black comedy are essential elements. “Dead Ringer” (1964) was yet another “bad twin” film, with Davis’ delicious performance underscored by André Previn.

Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine play a deadly game of cat and mouse, as a mystery writer plans to exact revenge on his wife’s lover, in a big screen adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play, “Sleuth” (1972). John Addison, who had previously harpsichorded his way to an Academy Award with his score for “Tom Jones,” wrote the impish music.

Finally, Barbara Harris plays a fake psychic and Bruce Dern her cab-driving, private investigator boyfriend, who become embroiled with serial kidnappers, in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, “Family Plot” (1976). The composer was none other than John Williams, poised between his breakout success, “Jaws,” and “Star Wars,” which was to make him a household name. (Both “Jaws” and “Star Wars” were Academy Award winners for Best Original Score.)

Hitchcock was full of suggestions as to the music and how it should be conducted. The composer recollects that on one occasion, when trying to convey the tone he was looking for, Hitch remarked, “Mr. Williams, murder can be fun.”

We’ll keep our tongues firmly in cheek as the corpses pile up. It’s an hour of arch harpsichords this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 10, 2025

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