Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Easter with Vaughan Williams and Metaphysical Poets

For me, it just isn’t Easter until I’ve heard Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs.” I defy anyone not to be uplifted by the opening song of the cycle, titled, well, “Easter.” The songs are settings of poems by George Herbert (1593-1633). This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear a classic recording, with bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk, as part of a program devoted to the 17th century metaphysical poets.

We’ll also hear William Alwyn’s “Lyra Angelica” of 1954, a harp concerto inspired by Giles Fletcher’s epic poem of 1610, “Christ’s Victorie and Triumph.” The composer regarded it as his most beautiful piece, and I am inclined to agree. The work likely received its widest exposure when Michelle Kwan elected to skate to it during the 1988 Olympics.

Finally, we’ll have a lute song setting by John Hilton of a poem by John Donne, “Wilt thou forgive that sinne,” from an album on the Harmonia Mundi label, titled “The Rags of Time.”

I hope you’ll join me for “Donne Deal” – an hour of metaphysical therapy – 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/

March 30, 2024
Easter Parade Music Sweetness and Light KWAX

Bring down the hatboxes and polish up your shoes. It’s nearly time to take a stroll down the avenue!

I hope you’ll join me this morning on “Sweetness and Light” for a good old-fashioned Easter Parade. We’ll enjoy a veritable bouquet of graceful melodies, turned-out as boulevardiers, flirts, dandies, and dog walkers.

Gentlemen, tip your hats, and, ladies, model your bonnets, as we partake in a leisurely promenade on a lovely spring morning.

Start your day with a light music Easter Parade on “Sweetness and Light,” 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/

March 30, 2024
Movie Music Faith & Film on KWAX

This week on “Picture Perfect,” in this season of wall-to-wall Biblical epics, enjoy a bit of counterprogramming in the form of music from films about faith, conscience, and grappling with self-abnegation.

Bruce Bereford’s “Black Robe” (1991), based on a novel by Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore, tells the tale of a Jesuit priest who treks through 1500 miles of Canadian wilderness on a mission to convert the native tribes of the Huron and the Algonquin. The evocative score is by Georges Delerue.

“Black Narcissus” (1947), a Powell-Pressburger classic, is one of those startling films that just sort of sneaks up on you. Psychological tension abounds in a tale of repressed nuns struggling to maintain their composure in a voluptuous Himalayan valley. Eventually, the wheels begin to spin off the tracks, to spinetingling effect. The stunning cinematography is by Jack Cardiff. Incredibly, the entire film was shot in England, mostly on soundstages at Pinewood Studios. The music is by Brian Easdale, of “The Red Shoes” fame.

Audrey Hepburn gives one of her most impressive performances in Fred Zinnemann’s “The Nun’s Story” (1959). A young woman enters a convent of sister-nurses and undergoes many trials in the hopes of becoming a missionary in the Belgian Congo. The film also features Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, and, in a memorable early role, an unhinged Colleen Dewhurst. The music is by Franz Waxman.

Finally, Ennio Morricone composed one of his most-beloved scores for “The Mission” (1986). Jeremy Irons plays a Jesuit priest, who ventures into the South American rainforest to convert the Guarani to Christianity. Robert DeNiro is a reformed slave hunter, who seeks redemption. The moving music has received a great deal of exposure over the years through its use in television commercials and by figure skaters, who have made “Gabriel’s Oboe” a recognizable hit.

Join me in seeking grace in an imperfect world, with music from films about nuns and missionaries this week, 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/

March 29, 2024
Facebook Anniversary Reflection Radio Days

Wouldn’t you know it? Good Friday, the bleakest day on the Christian calendar, also marks my tenth anniversary on Facebook. This page was created on March 29, 2014, to promote my specialty shows and to keep contact with my listeners, after hosts were booted off the air at WWFM for the first time for financial reasons. So began a dark period during which most of the afternoons were filled with reruns of our specialty shows (with new ones airing at their regularly assigned times). At least I was still getting paid to generate new content. The rest of the day was spackled in with music from a streaming service in the Midwest, with no connection whatsoever to our community, bringing listeners fragments of larger works, plenty of vacuous, chatty commentary, and dumbed-down music history and background (observations I borrow from one our loyal supporters, who has since sadly passed away). But in this season of redemption and hope for the future, I won’t belabor the point. The local hosts were restored to their regular, live air shifts in 2016, and things returned, more or less, to normal, until COVID unhorsed us all.*

*Except management

March 29, 2024
De Sabata’s Gethsemani Online

I know I’ve written about this before, but I notice for the first time that the sound file for the recording is posted online. This means either relaxed vigilance on the part of the record label, Hyperion (sold to Universal Music Group last year), or it’s slipped past YouTube’s search-and-destroy algorithm. Hyperion used to be pretty ruthless about yanking down its files.

On Maundy Thursday, Christians commemorate Jesus’ washing of the feet of His disciples, the Last Supper, and the betrayal and arrest of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. I’m not on the air today, but if I were, I would most certainly play Victor de Sabata’s beautiful meditation for orchestra, “Gethsemani.”

De Sabata is remembered primarily as a conductor, especially of opera, having led the classic recording of “Tosca” with Maria Callas. He got his start playing violin in an orchestra under Toscanini. Toscanini encouraged the young man to become a conductor, which was kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle. Their relationship status passed from mentor-disciple to friendship to bitter rivalry. For decades, De Sabata was principal conductor at La Scala. For a time, he was its artistic director. One observer described his appearance while conducting as a cross between Julius Caesar and Satan.

An interesting tension, then, between the sacred and the diabolical. The conductor in this recording, highly recommended, is De Sabata’s son-in-law, Aldo Ceccato, who turned 90 in February. I think you’ll agree, it’s a garden well-tended.

March 28, 2024

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