Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Lost Chord Unearths Neglected Norwegian Composers

Whenever I don’t have any ideas this time of year, it’s always easy to fall back on the weather. Winter = cold = north = Scandinavia.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord, we’re off to Norway for music by a couple of composers, neither of whom are terribly well-known.

Halfdan Cleve (1879-1951) received an unusually strict musical upbringing. His father was an organist, who insisted his son play nothing but Bach until he was 16! The young Cleve later went to Germany, where he received instruction from the Scharwenkas, brothers Philipp and Franz Xaver. The latter, a pupil of Franz Liszt, was regarded as one of the towering keyboard virtuosos of his day.

Cleve became widely known as a composer and pianist, but his popularity waned after World War I. He reacted to the rise of modernism by clinging more firmly to his Norwegian roots, celebrating the Norwegian countryside and its folk idioms in his music. His Violin Sonata of 1919 is reflective of this attitude.

Also from 1919, we’ll hear the Piano Concerto of Eyvind Alnaes (1872-1932), a figure who is known, if at all, for his art songs, some of which were recorded by Kirsten Flagstad and Feodor Chaliapin. Alnaes’ musical language is less overtly “Norwegian” than that of Cleve. In fact, his concerto echoes Brahms and Tchaikovsky, with some interesting suggestions of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4, which was not completed until seven years later. Did Rach know this work?

I hope you’ll join me for “Dark Horse Norsemen,” works by neglected Norwegian composers.

PLEASE NOTE: because of the length of the Sunday Opera (“Götterdämmerung”), all WWFM evening programs will begin one hour and 15 minutes later than usual. That means “The Lost Chord” will not begin tonight until 11:15 ET. If you plan to be sawing wood by then, you can always catch the rebroadcast, Wednesday evening at 6, or make it a point to listen to the webcast, once it is posted, at http://www.wwfm.org.

Flagstad sings Alnaes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aT6ZdY320Q

PHOTO: Norwegian horse can’t stop yawning because of “Lost Chord” late start time

January 11, 2015
Indoor Fun: Scheide Radio Doc Webcast

Looking for something to do indoors, on account of the cold? My radio documentary, “William H. Scheide: A Job Well-Done,” has been posted as a webcast at the WWFM website. This is the definitive (or near-definitive) version, incorporating tweaks not heard in the broadcast premiere.

http://wwfm.org/webcasts.shtml

If you like what you hear, send a note to the station. While you’re at it, consider sending them some dough. It’s listener support that makes programs like the Scheide salute possible. Thanks!

PHOTO: William H. Scheide (standing), with the Bach Aria Group

January 10, 2015
Opera’s Dark Elf and Bird Droppings at Princeton

Only opera can promise a malevolent elf and an old man blinded by bird droppings.

Gabriel Crouch will conduct Princeton University Opera Theater, along with members of the Princeton Girlchoir and The American Boychoir, in a double-bill of Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” and Jonathan Dove’s “Tobias and the Angel,” tonight and tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium.

To learn more, check out my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/classical_music_princeton_doub.html

You might not want to sit too close to the stage when the sparrows arrive.

(To see the boys in their bird costumes, click on “The American Boychoir,” above.)

January 9, 2015
Rhapsody in Blue on TCM Oscar Levant & Gershwin

Since there seemed to be a lot of interest when I posted about Oscar Levant the other week, on the occasion of his birthday anniversary, I thought I’d point out the fact that Turner Classic Movies: TCM is showing “Rhapsody in Blue” tonight at 10 ET. In this 1945 film, an alleged biography of George Gershwin, Levant plays a supporting role – as himself. The composer is played by Robert Alda, Alan Alda’s dad.

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/24016%7C0/Rhapsody-in-Blue.html

“Even the lies about Gershwin were being distorted.” – Oscar Levant

January 8, 2015
Latin Swashbuckler Music to Heat Up Winter

Frigid temperatures got you down? Put some swagger back into your step with an hour of music from Latin swashbucklers.

Alfred Newman gets the blood pumping with his virile soundtrack for “Captain from Castile” (1947), in which Tyrone Power flees persecution at the hands of the Inquisition to join Cortés’ expedition to conquer Mexico. The film was shot on location with one sequence set against the backdrop of an erupting volcano!

Power, of course, was one of the screen’s great Zorros. However, with “The Mask of Zorro” (1998), Antonio Banderas becomes the Zorro for our time. He’s aided and abetted by Anthony Hopkins, as the elder Zorro who mentors him. (TWO Zorros in one film! I could expire of joy.) Catherine Zeta-Jones is radiant, and the music by James Horner literally hits all the right notes.

This film was already a throw-back upon release, with plenty of real-life, real-time swordplay and stunts galore, with the barest minimum of computer-generated bells and whistles. I wish to God popcorn entertainment could still be like this. As it was, “The Mask of Zorro” was like a belated last gasp of the 1980s. It was easily the best swashbuckler of the ‘90s – though, really, was there much competition?

Banderas got a chance to send-up his image in the Dreamworks’ computer-animated feature, “Puss in Boots” (2011), a spin-off from the Shrek series, which actually turned out to be a better sequel than “The Legend of Zorro” (2005).

The film sports plenty of Zorro in-jokes, which extend even to Henry Jackman’s entertaining score. How is it that animated movies are just about the only movies these days that seem to keep up the great symphonic tradition of classic film scoring?

Finally, Errol Flynn has one last swash left in his buckle for “The Adventures of Don Juan” (1948), his last wholly satisfying period adventure. Equally, Max Steiner rises to the occasion and provides one of his best scores, just about on the same level as those of the master of the genre, Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of Latin swords, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6, or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

January 8, 2015

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