Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Women Composers on Sweetness and Light Radio

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” for International Women’s Day, we’ll have lighter works by six female composers: (pictured, clockwise from upper left) Peggy Stuart Coolidge, Elisabeth Lutyens, Teresa Carreño, Cécile Chaminade, Katherine Gladney Wells, and Doreen Carwithen – though not necessarily in that order. One was a crotchety avant-gardist who kept food on the table by writing music for sci-fi/horror films. One played for Abraham Lincoln at the White House. One was an heiress of the Seven-Up fortune. I’ll fill you in, as concisely as possible, on “Sweetness and Light.” Cherchez les femmes, 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/

March 8, 2025
Doreen Carwithen Unsung Film Composer

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll shine a light on the shamefully underutilized talent of Doreen Carwithen.

In 1941, Carwithen studied harmony and composition with William Alwyn at London’s Royal College of Music. For both, it was love at first sight. Their fateful pairing led to a decades-long romance that culminated in their marriage, finally, in 1975.

The reason for the delay was, unfortunately, at the time of their meeting, Alwyn happened already to be married. The double-life caused tremendous stress. Alwyn, in particular, descended into alcoholism and suffered a nervous breakdown. Finally, his doctor urged him that, if he was going to live at all, he should get on with it already and live honestly.

In the concert hall, Alwyn – a contemporary of William Walton and Michael Tippett – enjoyed comparative success as a symphonist. Carwithen, too, got off to a promising start. Her overture “ODTAA (One Damn Thing After Another)” was conducted by Adrian Boult at Covent Garden in 1947. She also wrote two award-winning string quartets. But the cinema promised more lucrative employment. Carwithen was the first selected by J. Arthur Rank to enter the college’s new film music program.

Combined, during their heyday, in the 1940s and ‘50s, Alwyn and Carwithen wrote the music for over 100 films. Alwyn, in particular, scored such high-profile projects as “The Crimson Pirate,” “A Night to Remember,” and “The Swiss Family Robinson.” Carwithen, although groomed for the very purpose, was not given the same opportunities. In all, she scored only six dramatic features. The rest were documentaries and shorts.

Neither were her concert works, though well-received, met with the same enthusiasm or eagerness by either programmers or publishers. In 1961, she became Alwyn’s secretary and amanuensis, and following his death in 1985, devoted herself to the preservation of his legacy.

Following her own death, in 2003, discovered among her papers were sketches for an unfinished string quartet (her third), a symphony, and a cello concerto. One can only imagine that, as an artist, her potential remained unfulfilled.

We’ll do our best to level the playing field for an hour, anyway, dividing the program between Alwyn and Carwithen, 50/50, 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 – 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/

March 7, 2025
Maurice Ravel: A 150th Birthday Celebration

He was a natty dresser, a reckless driver, a lover of cats, mechanical toys, and American jazz. Most of all, he was an exquisite composer. Frequently pigeonholed as an Impressionist, he could certainly evoke mood and atmosphere in his music, but he also expressed himself with the transparency and precision of a classicist. I’ve posted a lot about Maurice Ravel over the years. On the 150th anniversary of his birth, here are links to just a few of my past observations. If you’re interested, I hope you’re able to access everything.

Merci, Maurice Ravel!

Ravel’s love of toys

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=559132580920703&set=a.279006378933326

Ravel and cats (there are multiple images, so you’ll have to click “view post” at the upper right after following the link)

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2064327513734528&set=pcb.2064339847066628

Ravel and Gershwin (and, by extension, jazz)

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1265378057714588&set=a.883855802533484

Ravel and Vaughan Williams (again, there are multiple images, so you’ll have to click “view post” at the upper right after following the link)

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1057531578499238&set=pcb.1057534635165599

Ravel and war

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=784646281702664&set=a.279006378933326

Ravel’s “Bolero” (multiple images, so you’ll have to click “view post” at the upper right after following the link)

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1253515038900890&set=pcb.1253593182226409

Ravel delays possible

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1176348285865793&set=a.279006378933326

March 7, 2025
Einstein Martinů & Princeton in Print

I’ve been pretty low-key about it (as in, I haven’t said anything about it at all), but then, I’ve never exactly been a genius at self-promotion. However, my article on Princeton’s most beloved brainiac, Albert Einstein, and his relationship to music, is one of the features in this month’s Princeton Echo. I believe the print edition was issued on March 1. So keep a lookout for my byline in Princeton vending machines and at area businesses.

An amateur violinist who adored Mozart, Einstein knew and even played with a number of notable musicians and scientists, both in Princeton and abroad. He was even honored at Carnegie Hall by Leopold Godowsky and Arnold Schoenberg.

While he wasn’t exactly at home with music of the 20th century, Einstein liked and respected Bohuslav Martinů, who taught composition at Princeton University from 1948 to 1951. The two shared much in common, and Martinů wound up writing a piece of music for him.

It just so happens that the composer, who is not exactly a household name, but perhaps should be, will be the subject of his own music festival, “Martinů and His World,” at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, August 8-17.

You can access the article at one of the links below. I’ll also include a link to the Bard Music Festival.

The article is slated to be reprinted in the Princeton weekly U.S. 1 in advance of Pi Day, 3/14 (by coincidence, also Einstein’s birthday), always a big deal in these parts. So you’ll have a choice between the two newspapers in the next week or so.

For your convenience, I’ll also include a link to the schedule of this year’s Pi Day events (to be held in Princeton on Friday and Saturday, 3/14 & 3/15).

My article, “Relatively Musical: Albert Einstein and Bohuslav Martinů”

https://www.communitynews.org/towns/princeton-echo/relatively-musical-albert-einstein-and-bohuslav-martin/article_64f724c8-f840-11ef-81f3-77d946927c50.html

The Bard Music Festival, “Martinů and His World”

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/programs/bard-music-festival/

Princeton Pi Day events

https://princetontourcompany.com/tours/pi-day/

Better get cracking on your pi memorization!

Fisher Center at Bard

PHOTO: Einstein with Gaby Casadesus at Princeton’s Present Day Club

March 6, 2025
Bernstein Villa-Lobos TV’s Lost Art

Like so much else in the United States, the standards of broadcast television have eroded beyond recognition since the days of Leonard Bernstein’s “Young People’s Concerts” first aired on CBS from 1958 to 1972. The most celebrated American conductor – communicative, charismatic, and cool – introduced classical music to receptive kids in living rooms across the nation. Such was the network’s belief in this Saturday morning program that for three years it was broadcast in prime time. Later, it was shown on Sunday afternoons. The shows were syndicated in more than 40 countries, and the series was honored with five Emmys.

It’s sad to reflect that there was once a time when those who set the standards for network television actually saw it as part of the medium’s mission to educate and to elevate. How quaint of legislators and executives of our grandparents’ generation to want that.

Of course, at the same time, the Flintstones were hawking cigarettes…

Inevitably, the lure of lucre would trump public service, and the presence of educational and artistic programming would dwindle. I’m thankful that remnants of this sort of thing were still around in the ‘70s and ‘80s, though mostly thanks to PBS – now under fire by small minds and empty souls determined to undermine anything that truly does make this country great.

Here, on the birthday of Brazilian master Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bernstein sums up the composer’s musical aims in four minutes in this “Young People’s Concerts” broadcast of 1963:

Then he conducts Villa-Lobos’ biggest hit, “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.”

On an earlier broadcast, in 1960, Bernstein conducted the composer’s second-biggest hit, “The Little Train of Caipira,” from “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2”

Happy birthday, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and requiescat in pace, American sanity.

March 5, 2025

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