Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Schubert on Harp Lara St. John’s New Album

Harpeggione?

Yes, Lara St. John can be as terrible a punster as I. But she can also assume an air of propriety, when necessary, and opted to call her new album – recorded with principal harp of the Berlin Philharmonic, Marie-Pierre Langlamet – simply, “Schubert.”

On the disc, Langlamet performs Schubert’s piano parts, every blessed note as written, on a double-action pedal harp, an instrument the composer could not have known, and yet suits his creations wonderfully. The result is an insinuating, sinuous program of impromptus, lieder (including, appropriately enough, “Songs of the Harper,” with Deutsche Grammophon artist Anna Prohaska), a sonatina (with St. John) and the “Arpeggione” Sonata, with Berlin Philharmonic cellist Ludwig Quandt.

The disc is a follow-up to St. John and Langlamet’s earlier collaboration, “Bach Sonatas” (which in interviews St. John described as being for violin and “harp… sichord”). Both were issued on her own label, Ancalagon, named for her pet iguana, who in turn was named for a dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion.”

The label has been home to recordings by the New York-based chamber orchestra, The Knights, and St. John’s polka band, Polkastra, as well as a Juno Award-winning disc featuring Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, made with her brother, Scott St. John, then a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Lara St. John and Marie-Pierre Langlamet are my guests this week on “The Lost Chord,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3. Or you can catch the show later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

October 11, 2014
Early Music Fest at Grounds For Sculpture Sunday

Clear skies on Sunday, with temperatures in the lower 60s. It looks like the Guild for Early Music may have lucked out again, weather-wise, for this weekend’s Early Music Festival at Hamilton’s Grounds For Sculpture. The event will take place on Sunday, from 12:30 to 5 p.m. ET.

For the tenth year, the Guild will present music of the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Early American eras at the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, performing on often exotic stringed and wind instruments. In recent years, the event has grown to encompass two auditoriums. Representatives of the Guild will also stroll the grounds in costume.

Over 150 of Johnson’s outdoor sculptures are currently on display, including a 26-foot tall, 36,000 pound likeness of Marilyn Monroe, captured in her iconic pose atop a subway grate from “The Seven Year Itch.” Johnson’s three dimensional recreations of famous paintings like Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” continue to be popular attractions.

WWFM’s Alan Kelly, host of the early music program “Distant Mirror” (which can be heard Fridays at 10 p.m.) and David Osenberg, recipient of this year’s ASCAP Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Radio Broadcast Award for his program “Cadenza” (which can be heard Thursdays at 10 p.m.), will emcee the afternoon of mini-concerts. WWFM, of course, can be heard at 89.1 FM or online at http://www.wwfm.org.

Autumn is a lovely time to visit GFS, established by Johnson on the site of the former New Jersey State Fairgrounds, with its 42-acre sculpture garden, replete with fountains, peacocks and turning leaves.

The event is free with admission to park. Read more about it in my preview in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/classical_music_guild_for_earl.html

October 10, 2014
Poets on Film Movie Soundtracks

Grab your quill and laudanum. This week on “Picture Perfect,” the focus will be on poets in the movies.

We’ll have music from “Dead Poets Society” (1989), Peter Weir’s beautiful-but-vacuous take on the transformative powers of poetry, its “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” story arc made all the more poignant (and less cheap) by the passing of its beloved star, Robin Williams. Maurice Jarre, a long, long way from his Oscar-winning work on “Lawrence of Arabia,” wrote the music, which blends dulcimer and bagpipes (!) with electronics.

At least “Dead Poets Society” found a place in the hearts of the public. “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1973) did not. Sarah Miles plays Byron’s jilted lover, the wife of future prime minister William Lamb. Despite an impressive cast, which includes Jon Finch, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Richard Chamberlain (as Lord Byron, no less), and direction by venerable playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt (“A Man for All Seasons”), the film received mixed reviews and tanked at the box office. The always fine Richard Rodney Bennett provided the atmospheric score.

“Il Postino” (1994) tells the story of a simple postman whose prosaic life is transformed through the power of metaphor. His model is the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, played in the film by Philippe Noiret. The film’s writer and star, Massimo Troisi, died of a heart attack twelve hours after shooting was completed, having postponed surgery until he finished work. He was 41 years-old. Argentinian-Italian composer Luis Bacalov’s bandoneon-tinged score was honored with an Academy Award for Best Music.

Finally, we put a point on things with the rapier wit of “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1950). José Ferrer struts his stuff as the warrior-poet with the prominent proboscis, who never wants for words, save in the presence of his beautiful cousin Roxane. Ferrer elocuted – and fenced – his way to an Academy Award for Best Actor. The score is one of Dimitri Tiomkin’s finest, and we’ll hear a recording taken from the film’s original elements, under the crisp direction of the composer.

It’s poetry in motion this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6, or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

October 9, 2014
Jacques Lacombe Leaves New Jersey Symphony

Early morning appointments today prevented me from sharing the news that Jacques Lacombe will be stepping down as music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at the end of his current contract, in August 2016.

From my point of view, Lacombe has been great for the orchestra, overseeing the New Jersey Roots Project (which celebrates composers with a Jersey connection), presenting world premieres by prominent figures, undertaking the NJSO Edward T. Cone Institute in Princeton (as a training program for young composers), implementing thematic winter festivals, and spearheading multidisciplinary events.

In addition, he brought the orchestra to Carnegie Hall to perform the Busoni Piano Concerto with Marc-André Hamelin, on a concert which also featured works by Varèse and Weill, and set down a recording of “Carmina Burana” that had critics falling all over themselves in search of superlatives.

The NJSO’s programming under Lacombe’s tenure was recognized with an ASCAP Award from the League of American Orchestras.

Best wishes to Maestro Lacombe. The Canadian did fine work in New Jersey, but lacked the publicity machine – and perhaps the physics-defying energy – of his compatriot, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, whose tenure at the Philadelphia Orchestra has been trumpeted as the Second Coming. Fingers crossed that the NJSO finds as good a replacement.

PHOTO: What time is it? Time to leave the NJSO.

October 8, 2014
Anna-Maria Hefele Overtone Singing Mastery

I’m pretty much up to my eyeballs, so I’m borrowing this one from Norman Lebrecht. Here’s Anna-Maria Hefele to share her extraterrestrial mastery of polyphonic overtone singing:

More crazy stuff on her website as you scroll down the page.

http://xanmoo.com/am-oberton/

October 7, 2014

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