Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Princeton Concerts & Laptop Woes

I had a good friend down to Princeton for the weekend so that we could enjoy a couple of concerts at Richardson Auditorium – the New Jersey Symphony in Ravel (with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet) and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 2, on Friday, and the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky (with violinist Leila Josefowicz) and Tchaikovsky’s “Manfred Symphony,” on Saturday – and so that he could get to the bottom of my sustained computer woes. (As you may know, my laptop died over the holidays.) So there was a lot of toil (for him), a lot of fun (for me), and very little sleep (for either of us).

The end result is that he somewhat tamed Windows 11 and Microsoft Outlook, so that at the very least I again have email capability. Also, it’s helpful to me to have a rudimentary understanding of how the enraging new system works.

But alas, we had to throw in the towel, finally, and send the old drive out to a “clean room” for high-end data retrieval. The owner of the walk-in service we had to resort to, once my friend reached the extreme of his rather considerable knowledge, seemed very capable. Moreover, he was laudably transparent in explaining everything he attempted, including taking the computer around to some of his geek friends to have a look at it. But in the end, he too was flummoxed. The files are still detectable (thankfully), but no one can seem to access them (unfortunately).

I don’t feel the same sense of freedom and exuberance I once did when working on my old laptop – I don’t know why the Silicon Valley bastards always have to mess with everything – but perhaps with time I will become inured to the pain of the new. For the present, it is going a long way to reining in my internet addiction, as being on the computer now is such a negative experience. I’m also not very fond of the new laptop (going from HP to Lenovo). I recommend nothing about it.

I apologize for such an uninspired, utilitarian post, but I am wasted from the weekend. I’m wading into a second cup of coffee now, but I suspect, when it comes to any kind of skill in euphoniously stringing together words, today is going to be a wash.

January 13, 2025
Schoenberg Archive Burns in California Wildfires

The human cost of the California wildfires extends to the Arnold Schoenberg repository Belmont Music Publishers. Sadly, Larry Schoenberg, the composer’s son, who is 83, also lost his home. According to Larry’s press release, “The entire inventory of sales and rental materials – comprising some manuscripts, original scores, and printed works – has been lost in the flames.” Future efforts will emphasize digitization. Luckily, many original manuscripts and artifacts were transferred to the Arnold Schönberg Center, established in Vienna in 1998.

January 12, 2025
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

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