Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Mythical Women in Music Garrop and Snider

Medusa. Penelope. The Sirens. The Fates. Pandora.

Female characters from the classical myths provide the inspiration for Stacy Garrop’s “Mythology Symphony.” The movements of Garrop’s symphony – really more of a collection of symphonic poems – were composed between 2007 and 2013, on separate commissions from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (“Becoming Medusa”), the Albany Symphony Orchestra (“The Lovely Sirens” and “The Fates of Man”), and the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University (“Penelope Waits” and “Pandora Undone”), where Garrop was associate professor of composition from 2000 to 2016.

Likewise, archetypes from Homer inform Princeton composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s post-genre song cycle “Penelope.” Inspired by “The Odyssey,” Snider’s work originated as a music-theater monodrama, composed in 2007-08, on texts by playwright Ellen McLaughlin. A woman’s husband, a veteran of an unnamed war, returns home after 20 years. He suffers from brain damage and memory loss. The woman reads to him from Homer’s epic as together they journey through the healing process.

The cycle explores the subjects of memory, identity, and what it means to come home, alongside the terrors and traumas of war. Musically, “Penelope” straddles the worlds of chamber music and indie rock, with any demarcations between the two skillfully blurred and blended. We’ll hear selections from Snider’s song cycle to round out the hour.

Enduring myths of the ancient world are viewed from fresh perspectives this week, on “Myth Conceptions,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EASTERN)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 13, 2024
Sir Neville Marriner A Centenary Celebration

Monday may be Tax Day, but much more pleasantly, it also happens to mark the centenary of Sir Neville Marriner, who was born on April 15, 1924.

This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” we’ll honor the prolific English conductor, who died peacefully in his sleep on October 2, 2016, three days after giving his last concert in Padua, Italy. The next day, he was scheduled to begin a tour of Austria, Germany, and Belgium, with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the orchestra he founded in 1958. At the time of his death, he was 92 years old.

Hardly gone, then, and certainly he left so many recordings, that he’ll continue to be remembered, with gratitude, for quite some time.

Under Marriner’s direction, the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields became the most-recorded chamber orchestra in the world, the partnership yielding over 500 recordings.

Too many, obviously, to survey in an hour, so I’ll focus on four, which have meant a great deal to me, personally.

Marriner could always be counted on to deliver solid, interpretively, middle-of-the-road performances. Occasionally, he would even surprise by turning out a world-beater. He was the perfect choice to supervise the soundtrack for Milos Forman’s “Amadeus.” He was also a sensitive collaborator, in concerto and opera.

It seems there wasn’t much Marriner couldn’t accomplish in the studio, in the days when the major labels still dominated the classical music recording industry and, by extension, radio air time. Rare was the morning or afternoon drive that didn’t feature at least one recording by “Sir Neville and His Marriners,” as one host in the Philadelphia area memorably dubbed them.

There will be nothing taxing about the music this week, as we celebrate Sir Neville Marriner on “Sweetness and Light.” Start your day with a smile, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 EDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, here:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 13, 2024
Poetry at the Movies KWAX Picture Perfect

Time to sharpen your quill and replenish your laudanum. April is National Poetry Month. This week on “Picture Perfect,” the focus will be on poets at the movies.

We’ll hear music from “Dead Poets Society” (1989), Peter Weir’s beautiful-but-vacuous take on the transformative power of poetry, its “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” story arc made all the more poignant (and less cheap) by the passing of its beloved star, Robin Williams. Maurice Jarre, a long, long way from his Oscar-winning work on “Lawrence of Arabia,” wrote the music, which blends dulcimer and bagpipes (!) with electronics.

At least “Dead Poets Society” found a place in the hearts of the public. “Lady Caroline Lamb” (1973) did not. Sarah Miles plays Byron’s jilted lover, the wife of future prime minister William Lamb. Despite an impressive cast, which includes Jon Finch, Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, and Richard Chamberlain (as Lord Byron, no less), and direction by venerable playwright and screenwriter Robert Bolt (“A Man for All Seasons”), the film received mixed reviews and tanked at the box office. The always fine Richard Rodney Bennett provided the atmospheric score.

“Il Postino” (1994) tells the story of a simple postman whose prosaic life is transformed through the power of metaphor. His model is the exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, played by Philippe Noiret. The film’s writer and star, Massimo Troisi, died of a heart attack twelve hours after shooting was completed, having postponed surgery until he finished work. He was 41 years-old. Argentinian-Italian composer Luis Bacalov’s bandoneon-tinged score was honored with an Academy Award for Best Music.

Finally, we put a point on things with the rapier wit of “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1950). José Ferrer struts his stuff as the warrior-poet with the prominent proboscis, who never wants for words, save in the presence of his beautiful cousin Roxane. Ferrer elocuted – and fenced – his way to an Academy Award for Best Actor. The score is one of Dimitri Tiomkin’s finest, and we’ll hear a recording taken from the film’s original elements, under the crisp direction of the composer.

It could be verse. Poetry warms the soul this week. It’s poetry in motion, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EASTERN)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EASTERN)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EASTERN)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 12, 2024
Mahler 7 Philadelphia Orchestra Review

With Robert Moran last night for Mahler 7 with The Philadelphia Orchestra, at the recently-rechristened Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Bob likes to get there early and, last night anyway, sit close, so here we are, all alone, in our “box” in the third tier, like Statler and Waldorf, overlooking the stage and waiting for the auditorium to fill. The vantage is not my preference, but it is within my price range, and – pleasant surprise – the sound did not suffer at all for it. The orchestra performed magnificently under its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, but the brass players, in particular, must have had their super-serum. Everything was so immediate, which in my experience has not always been the case in this hall. Of course, Mahler, he does write big.

The 7th has fun, outlandish touches in the orchestration, including parts for acoustic guitar, mandolin, and cowbells, for the pastoral “Nachtmusik” movements (there are two of them framing a central scherzo in a five-movement structure, which is why you will sometimes hear the work referred to as “Song of the Night”), and enormous, pendulous chimes for the rousing finale.

The crowd, which included many young people, a number of whom looked like they were bused in together as part of a sizeable group, roared its approval, and a smiling Yannick, who looked all the world like a diminutive angel on the podium, as I gazed down on his blond hair, went from section to section to genuflect before all the principals. Percussionist Don Liuzzi was clearly an audience favorite for his thrilling mastery of the timpani.

The orchestra will take its act to Carnegie Hall tonight at 8:00, but will return to Philly for two more performances, Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 2:00. You may not think that the 7th is anyone’s favorite Mahler, but if the orchestra plays with the energy and commitment it did last night, you could change your mind.

Tickets and information here:

https://www.philorch.org/performances/our-season/events-and-tickets/

Don Liuzzi timpani teaser

Look closely at the bird’s-eye, and you’ll see the guitar and mandolin on the left, next to the harps

April 12, 2024
LOTR Opera: A Worthy Musical Champion?

Has “The Lord of the Rings” at last found a worthy musical champion? Many composers have perished on the slopes of Mount Doom in their quest to bring Tolkien’s magnum opus to the stage, but at last it appears the Tolkien Estate has given its benediction to Paul Corfield Godfrey to write a “Lord of the Rings” opera. Not just any opera, mind you, but, as one would hope, a multi-evening event, in the manner of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” (which Tolkien disliked, by the way, for what he perceived as Wagner’s cavalier treatment of the legendary and mythological source material). Godfrey’s LOTR will consist of 17 hours of music, to be presented over six nights.

Does he have the chops? He is a lifelong fan, who appears to have been crafting Tolkien settings for decades. He lacks for neither energy nor ambition. Who writes that much music about “The Silmarillion?” At least he seems to be able to do atmosphere and, judging from the samples of his work posted online, it doesn’t sound like the characterless noodling with no big moments that makes so much contemporary opera seem so colorless.

At any rate, with the amount of passion this guy has for the material, it’s got to be more than just a “Rings of Power” cash grab. Right? RIGHT???

Among Godfrey’s teachers were Alan Bush, a reputable English composer, and David Wynne, less well-known, but his Symphony No. 3 was conducted by Bryden Thomson and the audio is posted on YouTube.

I imagine the musical language for a LOTR opera can’t help but be old-fashioned, but if anyone were going to do it, I would hope that would be the case. It needs to be big and tonal, with plenty of heaven-storming and heldentenors.

The recordings will appear – on 15 CDs! – in 2025. The project enlists the talents of Volante Opera Productions, with singers drawn largely from the Welsh National Opera. Godfrey’s LOTR will be followed in 2026 by an opera inspired by “The Hobbit.” Both have been in the making for over 50 years.

From the samples of his work posted online, I think this guy understands “The Lord of the Rings” better than Peter Jackson. Then, the bar has been set very low. May the stars shine upon his face!

Samples from “The Silmarillion”

More about the composer

https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/node/68299

Volante Opera Productions

https://www.volanteopera.wales/

April 11, 2024

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS