19 days later, COVID-free!
Maybe that’s why they call it COVID-19.
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Angel Blue Kicks Off Princeton Festival 2024
Last season, when soprano Pretty Yende had to cancel her appearances with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra due to illness, Angel Blue stepped up at the eleventh hour to deliver possibly the finest “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” I have ever heard. With the audience in the palm of her hand, she went on to sustain the spell with a selection of gorgeously-rendered operatic arias, the capstone being an impromptu duet on Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro” with a music student she invited to join her onstage. It was a memorable weekend of performances that sent everyone into the winter nights aglow with warm fuzzies.
This week, Princeton will have another chance to experience Blue’s enchantment when she returns for opening night of The Princeton Festival, this Friday at 8 p.m.
On the program will be arias by Puccini, Verdi, and Gershwin, with music director Rossen Milanov conducting the PSO in additional orchestral works by Puccini, Dvořák, Delius, and zarzuela master Ruperto Chapí.
The festival, continuing through June 22, will include concerts that embrace a wide variety of genres. As always, the centerpiece will be opera, with this year three fully-staged performances of Mozart’s “Cosi fan tutte” (June 14, 16 & 18).
But there will also be a Tina Turner tribute show (including Broadway star and “American Idol” finalist LaKisha Jones, June 8 ), a Latin American family program (with Sonia De Los Santos and her band, June 9), chamber music by Shostakovich, Beethoven, and Reena Esmail (with the Abeo Quartet, June 13), dance with American Repertory Ballet (with choreography by Arthur Mitchell and Meredith Raine and music by Philip Glass, Grieg, Miranda Scripp, and Sibelius, June 15), Black choral music (with Capital Singers of Trenton and friends, directed by Westminster Choir College’s Vinroy D. Brown, Jr., June 19), Baroque favorites, including a selection of “Brandenburg Concertos” (with the ensemble The Sebastians, June 20), genre-bending classical crossover (with the trio Empire Wild, June 21), and cabaret (with Tony Award winning artist, for his tour de force performance in Broadway’s “Tootsie,” Santino Fontana, June 22).
Most of the concerts, including opening night with Angel Blue, will be presented in the performance pavilion on the grounds of Morven Museum & Garden at 55 Stockton St. (a.k.a. Route 202). Concerts featuring the Abeo Quartet and The Sebastians will be held across the road at Trinity Church Princeton (technically 33 Mercer St.).
For more information and additional events, including pre-performance talks, the Juneteenth celebration, an art exhibit opening, and Yoga in the Garden, visit the festival website at princetonsymphony.org/festival.
Clockwise from upper left: Angel Blue, Sonia De Los Santos, Santino Fontana, and Empire Wild
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Philly Orchestra Summer Sadness?
So depressing is this email I received from the Philadelphia Orchestra yesterday. In the subject line, “A music-filled summer awaits!” Then I open it, and I see a photo of the Mann Music Center with more bodies strewn about the lawn than at the railroad station converted into a makeshift hospital in “Gone with the Wind.”
Scrolling down, there are capsules promoting the season-ending concert performances of “La bohème” at the Kimmel, the free neighborhood concerts, consisting mostly of excerpts from larger works (interesting repertoire admittedly – neglected Black composers – but why not show them the respect to play the music complete?), the summer festivals in Vail, Colorado, and Saratoga, New York, and a “summer residency” at the Mann.
What exactly does the summer residency entail? “…[C]lassical favorites by Gershwin and Tchaikovsky as well as hits by indie/roots band DISPATCH and Grammy Award-winner Beck. Plus… the first Philadelphia Orchestra live-score performances of two iconic films: ‘Batman’ and Disney’s ‘Aladdin.’”
Honey, bring me the smelling salts!
I know I posted about this last year, but this email is such a sad reminder. TWO orchestral concerts at the Mann – all summer – by the Philadelphia Orchestra. And they’re pitched right down the middle. I understand they want to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, but really? Is this what the orchestra now perceives as a music-filled summer?
But what are they going to do, say they know it isn’t much, but it’s what we’ve got, so enjoy it? Whoever wrote the press release probably wasn’t even born back when the orchestra really was offering a music-filled summer.
I hate to come across as the guy sitting in the back of his Rolls eating Grey Poupon out of the glove compartment, but time was when the orchestra used to play the Mann multiple nights a week (with the weekends reserved for popular bands). It looks like my description from last year (triggered by the death of André Watts) pretty much holds: “Now you’re lucky if they appear there three times in a summer, and then it’s usually to accompany a film or play the ‘1812 Overture.’”
Nobody had cell phones back in the day, either. But come to think of it, there always were some who treated the music as background to their inane picnic conversation. I guess people always were pretty much insufferable.
But in terms of the musical offerings, we never knew how good we had it. Or maybe we did, but we never thought it would go away.
My reminiscences, from last year, below.
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Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance: Beyond Graduation
It’s only appropriate that the composer of “Pomp and Circumstance” would be born at the height of graduation season.
Of course, commencement was the furthest thing from Sir Edward Elgar’s mind when he came to compose his most famous march. His “Pomp and Circumstance” marches are military marches, full of splendor and pageantry, conceived well before Elgar and everyone he knew were plunged into suffering as a result of the widespread loss and devastation wrought by World War I. The first four marches mostly sparkle with the sheen, naivete, and romance of soldiers on parade.
He wrote five “Pomp and Circumstance” marches in all, and you know what? They’re all terrific. They should be played as a set more often, as the character, mood, and tempi of the marches vary. In fact, taken as whole, they should be regarded with the same level of respect as Dvořák’s “Slavonic Dances.”
Really, though, they weren’t conceived that way. The first four marches were published between 1901 and 1907, when Elgar was in his 40s. The fifth was published in 1930, when he was in his 70s. A belated addendum, then, yet it rounds off the collection so beautifully! It does have a sense of valediction about it.
It is the “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1” that has been drummed into the consciousness of all Americans as the graduation march. Given its first performance in Liverpool in 1901, it was fated to take its place as a staple of commencement ceremonies all across the U.S. after it was played as the processional at Yale University in 1905, in the presence of the composer, who was presented with an honorary doctorate.
In England, the trio section, the part everyone here processes to, is also recognized as “Land of Hope and Glory.” Elgar repurposed the tune for use in his “Coronation Ode” for King Edward VII. With the text further modified, it then took its place as a fixture at the Last Night of the Proms. It’s played at sporting events and anywhere a hit of patriotism is required. It is an undeniably stirring tune.
Unfortunately, it’s ubiquity has also led to Elgar being inextricably tied up with the idea of “empire” and “imperialism,” which is deeply unfortunate, as Elgar was a man and an artist of great sensitivity, who as a Roman Catholic and the son of a tradesman, often felt out of step with the character and actions of the English establishment. He gained a large following for his patriotic works, but his wider output is full of music that is marked by intimacy, frequently confessional in nature, and often quite soulful.
A sixth “Pomp and Circumstance” march was completed posthumously, using the composer’s sketches, by Anthony Payne. I always regard such exercises as curiosities, and I am happy to hear them, but they are by no means “canon.” That said, Payne, a composer himself, did a marvelous job assembling an Elgar Third Symphony, again using sketches and fragments as a springboard. (The proper title of the work is “Edward Elgar: the sketches for Symphony No. 3 elaborated by Anthony Payne.”) It’s not Elgar, but personally I find it to be a quite beautiful and successful piece. As long as listeners are aware that it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, Elgar’s vision.
The set of five marches is very satisfying as it stands, but I’m also including Payne’s elaboration of Elgar’s sketches for a sixth at the bottom of this post. It’s an inspired touch to allude to the first march to round off the set, but I’m still not convinced it’s anything more than a clever stunt. It shouldn’t be included in the established set.
This would also be a good time to acknowledge the passing of Jerrold Northrop Moore, the academic who devoted his life to archiving and advancing Elgar’s legacy. I always had a soft spot for this guy, because (1) he was an American, born in Paterson, NJ – and the U.S., as a matter of course, often seems to regard even the greatest English composers with a degree of skepticism – and (2) although he had academic credentials, clearly he was also an enthusiast. Some would say even eccentrically so. His passion for Elgar transcended the years of his professional life spent sifting through the dusty stacks of research libraries.
Yes, Moore collected, annotated, and published the composer’s correspondence. A biography, “Edward Elgar: A Creative Life,” is especially highly-regarded.
He also wrote extensively about the gramophone and early sound recordings, collected and edited the letters of conductor Sir Adrian Boult, and put together a charming volume of photographs of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
But he also owned a set of Elgar’s china, cultivated plants from the composer’s garden, and named his Pekinese Sir Edward.
In common with the American popularity of the “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1,” Moore enjoyed a strong connection to Yale. Following his graduation from there (no doubt marching to Elgar) and a stint teaching at the University of Rochester, he returned to New Haven to become Yale’s curator of historical sound recordings from 1961 to 1970. After that, he was off to England, where he lived for the rest of his life.
His is a name that anyone who loves Elgar has encountered again and again over the years, through his books, program notes, and reviews. By all appearances, his life was a long and fulfilling one. Jerrold Northrop Moore died on May 18 at the age of 90. I owe you a debt of gratitude, sir!
And you too, Sir Edward (the composer, not the Pekinese). Happy birthday!
“Pomp and Circumstance” Marches 1-5 can be heard as a set at the start of this classic recording by Sir John Barbirolli
“Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6,” realized by Anthony Payne
“Land of Hope and Glory,” from the “Coronation Ode”
At the Proms, with the late Sir Andrew Davis
Footage of Elgar conducting it
PHOTOS: Sir Edward (colorized), looking distinguished, and his champion at 90
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Elgar Remastered Hear the Composer in Accidental Stereo
This week on “The Lost Chord,” there may not be glorious Technicolor or breathtaking Cinemascope, but what would Cole Porter say, to hear Sir Edward Elgar in stereophonic sound?
Elgar was one of the first of the great composers to endeavor to set down “definitive” interpretations of his own works on recordings. Or so it has been thought. But did Elgar really regard these performances as definitive? In fact, Elgar took great care to “grade” the various takes from his recording sessions. Some of these, he instructed, were to be destroyed outright; others were held, as the composer took the time to consider.
What emerges, upon listening to a 4-CD set, “Elgar Remastered,” on the SOMM Recordings label, are the impressions that (1) Elgar was fairly meticulous when it came to preserving his legacy, and (2) he also understood that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Rediscovered alternative takes make clear that the composer was amenable to looking at his own works from a variety of perspectives.
For their parts, the conscientious engineers at EMI employed multiple machines to guard against technological failure. This was back in the late 1920s and early ‘30s. Now, for the first time, the elements have been brought together and skillfully combined to create a kind of “accidental” stereo.
Engineer Lani Spahr has worked wonders with these recordings, from the private collection of Arthur Reynolds, chairman of the North American Branch of the Elgar Society. He also goes into considerable detail in his liner notes – in fact, to a degree that would be impractical to relate here.
A good deal of the set is devoted to recordings and alternative takes of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. As on the composer’s authorized recording, issued on EMI, Beatrice Harrison is the soloist. These include the first complete electrical recording, from 1928 – the one which would ultimately be published, in mono – with previously unissued, alternative takes from the same sessions. There is also an earlier, truncated recording from 1920, set down using the acoustic process, and a performance of the concerto’s Adagio movement alone, with Harrison accompanied at the keyboard by Princess Victoria.
The gem of the set is Harrison’s celebrated 1928 recording, heard here for the first time entirely in stereo, or what passes for stereo.
Harrison was Elgar’s preferred soloist. He lavished praise on her performances, even as she took liberties with the score. At the session for this particular recording, he was overheard to say, “Give it ‘em, Beatrice, give it ‘em. Don’t mind about the notes or anything. Give ‘em the spirit.”
Worlds away from the effusive, heart-on-the-sleeve approach of Jacqueline du Pré, Harrison’s interpretation is nonetheless riveting on its own terms. As with the other recordings in the collection, it is a kind of time capsule of period performance practice – with swooping portamenti (audible slides between notes) – and the musicians’ flexibility in regard to both tempo and phrasing.
And Elgar can be such a volatile conductor! In addition, we’ll hear a cracking rendition of the “Cockaigne Overture” and a performance of the prelude to the oratorio “The Kingdom,” which really takes flight.
Yes, this is the same Elgar who wrote that ubiquitous graduation march. Join me to hear him as you’ve never heard him before – in “accidental” stereo – on “Pomp and Happenstance,” on “The Lost Chord,” today, on the eve of the anniversary of his birth, 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!
In case you missed it, I posted about Harrison for the centenary of her historic “nightingale” broadcasts on May 19:
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