Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Debussy’s Birthday & My “Flaxen Hair” Moment

Following a leisurely walk through Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia about 30 years ago, I sat down at a keyboard in my studio apartment, hoping to recapture the hazy, haunting music that had flitted around the periphery of my consciousness. I smiled with relief and satisfaction, when I knew I had finally gotten it down. I was proud of myself to have created something so beautiful! It was only later that I realized it was “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.”

Claude Debussy, always stealing my thunder. Happy birthday, mon vieux!

Here it is, performed by flaxen-haired twins in a field full of wild flowers.

August 22, 2023
Seward’s House A Serendipitous Encounter

I’ve been attending way too many weddings the past couple of years, and all of them, it seems, are held in upstate New York. This past weekend I was in Auburn, and with Saturday afternoon free, I decided to visit William H. Seward’s house. You know, Lincoln’s secretary of state. The guy who later purchased Alaska.

Anyway, no sooner did I walk through the door to sign up for the noon tour than I was met with “Aren’t you Ross Amico?”

To which I replied, “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”

Who was standing there, but a former WWFM volunteer, a musician in the Princeton area, who also happens to be a friend of one of the docents! I could see the person behind the admission desk crane her head to try to discern if I was anyone important; but I think she was fairly quickly disabused of the idea when we started to talk about classical music radio.

You never know whom you’re going to meet, or where.

Perhaps an interesting autobiographical postscript: I once played Seward in a 4th grade play! However, I have a terrible agent, so I never even got an audition with Steven Spielberg.

August 21, 2023
Lili Boulanger Prix de Rome Prodigy

Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), the younger sister of the renowned pedagogue Nadia – who taught Aaron Copland, Elliot Carter, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass, Michel Legrand, Quincy Jones, and just about everyone else – was one of the great hopes of French music, the first woman to win the Prix de Rome composition prize. She won the prize in 1913, at the age of 19, for her cantata “Faust et Hélène.” It was actually Lili’s second attempt. The year before, she collapsed during her performance.

Lili suffered from chronic ill health, having contracted bronchial pneumonia at the age of 2. Her compromised immune system left her vulnerable to Crohn’s disease, which ended her life in 1918 at the age of 24. (Nadia’s life was as long as her sister’s was brief. She died in 1979 at the age of 92.)

Nadia too had had ambitions to compose. She herself attempted to attain the Prix de Rome (as their father had done in 1835), but was repeatedly frustrated. She got as far as second place in 1908. It became evident that her sister was the real deal in that regard, so Nadia pursued organ and, of course, pedagogy.

Both sisters were greatly influenced by Gabriel Fauré, who was director of the Paris Conservatory – Lili, a musical prodigy, had been accompanying her sister to the conservatory from before the age of 5 – and of course Debussy’s impact in those days was inescapable. Like Debussy, Lili gravitated toward a kind of indirection in her music, more characteristic of Symbolism than the evocative sorts of atmospheres often attempted by the Impressionists (a classification, by the way, Debussy disliked).

Lili was greatly affected by the death of her father in 1900, and many of her works are marked by grief and loss. Ernest fathered his children quite late in life. He was 72 when Nadia was born, and 77 at the time of Lili’s birth. The girls’ mother was 41 years his junior. Despite the inherent melancholy that pervades much of her music, Lili displayed a colorful mastery of harmony and orchestration.

Often she was perceived as destined for greatness. Her music has actually been programmed fairly frequently for a woman composer of her era. But now with greater sensitivity to male dominance in the world’s concert halls, we are starting to hear even more Lili Boulanger. It’s just a pity she didn’t leave us more.

Happy birthday, Lili Boulanger.

Deux morceaux for violin and piano: Nocturne and Cortège

“Faust et Hélène”

“D’un soir triste” (“Of a Sad Evening”)

“D’un matin de printemps” (“Of a Spring Morning”)

“Vieille prière bouddhique” (“Old Buddhist Prayer”)

August 21, 2023
Earworms Share Your Stuck Songs Here

Leave your earworms in the comments section!

August 20, 2023
Howard Hanson’s Bold Island Inspiration

For many, the prospect of having to work through vacation can be a real drag; but for the creative artist, getting away can be a welcome opportunity to really get things done.

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear three pieces associated with Bold Island, Maine, the summer home of Howard Hanson.

For 40 years, Hanson was director of the Eastman School of Music. In that capacity he nurtured and championed innumerable American composers, giving literally thousands of premieres at the helm of the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, an ensemble he founded. The lucky ones made it onto Hanson’s records on the Mercury label.

Hanson, of course, was himself a composer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1944, for his Symphony No. 4 “Requiem,” written in memory of his father. But his best-known music, undoubtedly, is his Symphony No. 2 “Romantic,” composed in 1930.

The famous “Hanson sound” is one of heart-on-the-sleeve romanticism, characterized by glowingly nostalgic melodies, though he also had his severe side. After all, he was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish parents, and a certain Nordic austerity can be detected, especially in his later works.

His Symphony No. 6, of 1967, is more tightly argued than his earlier, more famous symphonies. Its six brief movements are built on a recurring motif. At times, it can sound a bit like Sibelius, though Hanson very much remains his own man. Hanson being Hanson, he doesn’t really skimp on the lyricism, but he doesn’t exactly indulge it to the same extent he does in the earlier works. Still, predictably, the symphony was derided as old-fashioned by the genuinely austere musical establishment of the day.

The Bold Island connection is through Hanson’s “Summer Seascape No. 2,” written a few years earlier, and clearly the blueprint for the symphony. In fact, the opening of the symphony is identical.

Hanson’s first “Summer Seascape” forms the centerpiece of his “Bold Island Suite,” a separate work composed in 1961. The suite also contains movements with the descriptive titles “Birds of the Sea” and “God in Nature.”

The North Atlantic inspires some august music, on “August Hanson,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Keep in mind, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

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

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

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: Not-very-austere Puffins off the coast of Maine

August 19, 2023

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS