Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Errollyn Wallen: New Master of the King’s Music

Errollyn Wallen is the new Master of the King’s Music.

Wallen, born in Belize, moved to London with her parents at the age of 2. She trained as a dancer, traveling to New York in her late teens to study with Dance Theater of Harlem. She then returned to the U.K. to pursue music at Goldsmiths, King’s College London, and King’s College, Cambridge. Wallen was the first Black woman to have her music performed at the Proms. At 66, she succeeds Dame Judith Weir, who was appointed to the post by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014. Wallen has been on the royal radar for some time, having been commissioned to compose works to mark the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees.

The appointment of Master (and yes, the title applies for both men and women) used to be one for life; however, that was changed following the death of Malcom Williamson in 2003. Williamson, also born abroad (in his case, in Sydney, Australia), caused some displeasure at Buckingham Palace when he failed to meet important deadlines. The position was modified to encompass ten years. Williamson was succeeded by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, an unusual choice, given the composer’s avant-garde and anti-establishment tendencies. But he seemed to get along well with the Queen. Weir was made Master in 2014.

Wallen, the second woman to hold the post (and consecutively at that) will be expected to provide music for official and ceremonial occasions. King Charles is known to hold rather conservative musical tastes. Wallen’s compositions are very much of our time, which is to say, she often employs a broader palette, although she has also shown she has the ability to keep her music accessible and popular. Her works have been turning up more and more frequently on orchestral and chamber music programs even in this country. The Kansas City Symphony gave the U.S. premiere of her Violin Concerto in March. It will be played by the North Carolina Symphony in October. I’ve caught her “Concerto Grosso” on the radio a few times. Last year, Wallen was ranked as one of the top 20 most performed living classical music composers.

In 2007, for her services to music, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 2020, she became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Her arrangement of Hubert Parry’s sacred cow, “Jerusalem” for the 2020 Proms, for which she added a line to Blake’s text to acknowledge the Commonwealth, stirred controversy.

Other composers to hold the post of Master of the King’s/Queen’s Music over the past century include Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Walford Davies, Sir Arnold Bax, and Sir Arthur Bliss.

Congratulations to Errollyn Wallen!

Concerto Grosso

Cello Concerto, with introductory interview with the composer. The music itself begins at 16 minutes in.

Controversial take on Parry’s “Jerusalem”

Her website

https://www.errollynwallen.com/

August 25, 2024
English Pastoral Piano Music Folk Song Spirit

According to a certain school of thought, folk music – music of the land – embodies the spirit of a nation. And no nation’s composers milked that cow quite as soulfully as the English.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have an hour of bucolic reflections for the keyboard of a time lost to technology and industrialization.

We’ll begin with Gerald Finzi’s “Eclogue” for piano and string orchestra. Originally drafted in the mid-‘20s as the projected slow movement of a piano concerto, the material was later reshaped by the composer, who was content to let it stand on its own. In case you’re not familiar with the term, an eclogue is a short pastoral poem.

If you find yourself transported by this, I think you will also really enjoy Cyril Rootham’s “Miniature Suite” of 1921. Rootham, better known for his choral music, was a friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. His work at Cambridge University exerted a significant influence over English musical life. Like the “Eclogue,” the “Miniature Suite” is scored for piano and strings.

In between, I’ll provide a palate cleanser in the form of E.J. Moeran’s “Summer Valley.” Moeran was one of the last composers to really thrive on English folk music. “Summer Valley,” composed for solo piano in 1925, was dedicated to Frederick Delius.

Finally, we’ll engage in a bit of musical time travel. In addition to the whole folk song perspective, England is justifiably proud of its formal musical past. The legacy of the Tudors was a particular influence on works such as Benjamin Britten’s “Gloriana,” Gordon Jacob’s “William Byrd Suite,” and Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.”

In the case Herbert Howells – like Rootham, a composer better recognized for his choral endeavors – he fell under the spell of the clavichord, after he was lent one by one Herbert Lambert, a photographer with a passion for building replicas of early keyboard instruments.

The fortuitous encounter led to the composition of three suites, written in different periods of Howells’ life, which hark back to the glory days of the “Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.” All three sets are characterized by an inventive blend of Tudor and English folk influences. Each of the individual movements are dedicated to a friend or colleague of the composer. We’ll hear the first set, titled “Lambert’s Clavichord,” written in 1927, which was sanctioned for performance on the modern piano.

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of musical escapes to the countryside and the golden musical past. That’s “Idyll Thoughts,” pastoral English works for piano, 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 EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

August 24, 2024
Sweetness and Light Circus Radio Show

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” with summer winding down, we’re off to the circus.

Are there any circuses anymore? Beyond Cirque du Soleil, I mean? Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave their farewell tour back in 2017. We’re too enlightened now to tolerate closely caged or potentially abused exotic animals, and quite rightly so.

Still, for those of us of a certain age, there remains a certain nostalgia for the circus, with its parade, and its Big Top, and the noise and color and smells and scary clowns.

I’ll be presenting for your wonderment and enjoyment an electrifying musical menagerie. There will be circus marches galore, a waltz long associated with the trapeze, a suite of character pieces for piano, a selection from an Academy Award winning film, not one, but TWO ballets (one conceived for baby elephants), and a delightful song by Charles Ives. You’ll practically smell the popcorn and cotton candy and hay and elephant droppings!

I can’t say it will be the greatest show on earth, but it’s bound to stir some memories for a bygone era of American tent circus.

Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Children of all ages! Join me for me in the center ring for “Sweetness and Light.” I’ll be donning the telltale top hat and tailcoat, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

August 24, 2024
Summer Movie Music From Across the Pond

With just a little over a week left in August, summer has nearly run its course, but there’s still time for a quick European vacation. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we glance across the pond for an hour of music from foreign films with summer settings.

“A Summer Story” (1988), based on a tale of John Galsworthy, tells of a young London lawyer and a farm girl who fall profoundly in love at the turn of last century. Georges Delerue provides the poignant score.

The juxtaposition of “Igmar Bergman” and “comedy” may seem like something of an oxymoron, but the dour Swede’s “Smiles of a Summer Night” (1955) proves to be a witty examination of the folly of the human heart. Frequent Bergman collaborator Erik Nordgren wrote the music.

Director Yves Robert adapted the memoirs of Marcel Pagnol, who spent his childhood summers in the south of France, into two lovely films, “My Father’s Glory” and “My Mother’s Castle” (both 1990). We’ll hear music composed for both by Vladimir Cosma. Pagnol’s experiences in Provence marked him for life, informing the films and writings of his maturity, including “The Baker’s Wife,” and “Jean de Florette.”

Finally, we’ll have a generous sampling from one of Ennio Morricone’s most beloved scores, that for “Cinema Paradiso” (1988). “Cinema Paradiso,” set in a post-war Sicily where it seems always to be summer, is a nostalgic paean to the shared experience of film and the significance it holds in our lives. It won a special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was honored with an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

Join me for summer overseas 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 EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

August 23, 2024
Debussy Clair de Lune Remembering Margaret

On Claude Debussy’s birthday anniversary, I remember one of my radio listeners, now no longer with us, and her fondness for “Clair de lune.”

The station I was with at the time had offered, as a fundraising incentive during one of its pledge drives, opportunities for contributors to select a host with whom to co-present two hours of their favorite music. That’s how I met Margaret. Margaret was a retired high school English teacher of 24 years. She was in her early 80s then. It’s been my experience that I get along very well with 80-year-olds. One of her selected pieces was “Clair de lune,” which she said reminded her of her mother, since her mother used to play it on the piano.

We had a lot in common, including the fact that she lived in my hometown of Easton, PA, and the shared experience of the radio show began a four-year friendship, during which she wrote to me frequently. I responded a little less frequently, but not shamefully so, as can sometimes be the case. She would send me photos of her garden, and the animals that visited, and relate her experiences and impressions of the seasons and her favorite places. She was a delightful person. It was a good, old-fashioned, snail-mail correspondence, nothing electronic. I wasn’t even on Facebook yet.

The last time I saw her was on a visit to her home in 2012, after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She tried to encourage me to take whatever I wanted, but I had a hard time with it. I was not in an acquisitive mood. Also, I felt as if I took something it would be an admission that it really was the end. Finally, after having been urged repeatedly, I selected a rolled-up copy of a poster of a panoramic view of Easton in autumn, of which she had several. She enjoyed quite a view from the window of her living room herself.

Margaret died nine days later, in December 2012. I still have her letters and a mug she gave me, with a reproduction of Franz Marc’s “The Dream.” We were both fans of the Blue Rider school and had visited an exhibition, separately, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Ironically, my mother is buried probably within a mile of her home.

This is no reflection on Margaret (and I think she would find that aside amusing), but here’s an abridged version of Debussy’s enduring piano piece, played for an 80-year-old elephant.

This was the version we played on the show.

Deleted segment from Disney’s “Fantasia,” with an orchestral version conducted by Leopold Stokowski

Happy birthday, Claude Debussy, and thinking of you, Margaret, wherever you are.

August 22, 2024

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