Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Befana The Christmas Witch of Italy

I pause in my editing of the Scheide tribute to briefly remind everyone that tonight, being the eve of Epiphany, marks the arrival of Befana the Christmas witch. Befana is the wizened crone who bestows gifts and happiness upon the good children of Italy. If the children are bad, they get a lump of coal. (If the family is poor, they get a stick.) It’s traditional to leave a glass of wine and a tasty morsel for Befana. In return, she will sweep the floors with her broom, symbolically sweeping away the problems of the old year.

Yet again, European Christmas traditions are sooooooo pagan.

January 5, 2015
Remembering Conductor Jerzy Semkow and Szymanowski

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we remember conductor Jerzy Semkow, who died on December 23 at the age of 86.

Semkow, Polish by birth, was a longtime resident of Paris. He apprenticed with Erich Kleiber, Bruno Walter and Tullio Serafin. He was assistant conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky.

Later, he held posts as principal conductor of the National Opera in Warsaw, principal conductor of the Royal Danish Opera and the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen, and music director of the Orchestra of Radio-Televisione Italiana in Rome (RIA).

Semkow was the ninth music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (where he served from 1975 to 1979), as well as music advisor and principal conductor of the Rochester Philharmonic (where he served from 1985 to 1989). He was a regular guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for some 40 years. His last appearance there was in 2009.

Though he made some respectable Beethoven and Wagner recordings for the Vox label, I thought we’d honor him with two works by his compatriot, Karol Szymanowski, both of them issued on EMI. We’ll hear Szymanowski’s “Symphonie concertante,” for piano and orchestra, and his Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Song of the Night,” for tenor, chorus and large orchestra, an opulent setting of poetry by Rumi.

I hope you’ll join me for “A Send-Off for Semkow,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6, or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: Polish up on your Polish with Semkow and Szymanowski

January 4, 2015
William Scheide Memorial & The 10th Day

THE TENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Ten lords a-leaping. I wish I could train them to do audio editing, thereby dividing my workload by 11.

I imagine, though, everything going horribly wrong, leading to some kind of Sorcerer’s Apprentice-style catastrophe, with ten manic lords clicking mice and pushing files around and destroying everything I’ve already worked so hard to accomplish. (Then again, I’ve already got Bill Zagorski for that, so I had better keep one ear open for what’s going on in Production 2.)

You may as well know, since the promo is already in rotation, I am doggedly at work on producing a memorial program for William H. Scheide, the Princeton philanthropist, humanitarian and Bach scholar, who died in November at the age of 100.

This Tuesday would have been Scheide’s 101st birthday. The plan is to honor his legacy with a two-hour program, for which I’ll have interviewed eight subjects – all people who knew him very well. These accounts will be interspersed with relevant musical examples, including many rare recordings of the Bach Aria Group, an ensemble Scheide founded and directed for over 30 years.

The memorial is slated to air Tuesday at noon, on http://www.wwfm.org. Which means I may as well sleep here tonight, since I’ll have to be here all day tomorrow if I’m to have a prayer of getting everything in shape by the end of Monday. I already look like Ben Gunn, and probably smell like him too. Anybody have any cheese?

January 3, 2015
Philadelphia Mummers’ Old World Roots

THE EIGHTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Philadelphia Mummers are by no means common knowledge once you venture outside the area. It is, after all, a peculiar custom: a bunch of contractors dressing up in feathers and sequins so that they can strut and play banjoes on Broad Street in freezing temperatures, as they compete against one another for bragging rights in this very Philly New Year’s Day tradition.

What appears to be even less known to Philadelphians is the tradition of Old World mumming, in which amateur performers careen from door to door at Christmas or Midsummer, enacting traditional plays. These mummer’s plays feature fantastic characters such as St. George and the Dragon, Robin Hood, the Turkish Knight and Beelzebub. Typically, at the end of the play, a “doctor” brings a slain character back to life. The actors wear outlandish, often unsettling costumes and masks.

The custom of mumming in Britain dates back to at least the 16th century, though the wider practice appears to be of ancient origin. It was the Swedes who brought it to Philadelphia in the 17th century. Participants aren’t supposed to fire guns in the air anymore, but it still happens. It’s best to stay away from open windows on New Year’s Eve.

Lots of fun stuff about the Philadelphia Mummers here:

http://billypenn.com/2014/12/30/mummers-101-the-sequins-blackface-and-binge-drinking-behind-a-philly-new-years-tradition/

If you crave a dose of Old World mumming, watch “The Wicker Man” (the real one, with Christopher Lee).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21gb49H-Uo4

A demonstration of the Mummer’s strut:

There is actually a fine documentary on the Philadelphia Mummers, titled “Strut!”

Too bad it appears to be out of print.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

PHOTO: Tomorrow, these guys will be overcharging you to fix your toilet

January 2, 2015
NJ Symphony Plays Shakespeare

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra music director Jacques Lacombe promises to transform the winter of our discontent to glorious summer, with a great deal more than the lascivious pleasing of a lute. The orchestra will embark on a three-week musical exploration of Shakespeare-inspired works, January 9-25, including an appearance at Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium, on January 16, and two performances at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, on January 10 & 25.

Violinist Sarah Chang will appear in all six venues that will be hosting the series (including NJPAC in Newark, bergenPAC in Englewood, the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, and the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown), playing a suite by David Newman from Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story.” “West Side Story,” obviously, is a musical update of “Romeo and Juliet.”

Also on the series will be such favorites as Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture” and selections from Prokofiev’s ballet on the same subject, but also concert rarities such as Elgar’s “Falstaff,” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s suite from “Much Ado About Nothing,” Sergei Taneyev’s completion of Tchaikovsky’s love duet from a projected opera on “Romeo and Juliet,” and selections from Samuel Barber’s “Antony and Cleopatra.”

For more information, check out my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/classical_music_nj_symphony_or_1.html

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

– “The Tempest,” Act III, Scene 2

January 2, 2015

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