Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Scrooge 1970 Uplifting Christmas Spirit

So, it ain’t “Oliver!” What it is is a surprisingly potent bowl of warming Christmas punch. Just as Albert Finney’s Scrooge imbibes from the Cup of Human Kindness, so the viewer is uplifted, welcome or welcome not, by the high Spirits of “Scrooge” (1970). Leslie Bricusse’s hit-and-miss musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic ends in an explosion of joy unrivaled in its boisterous onscreen ecstasy. Thank you very much, indeed!

I can’t say that last night’s discussion scaled quite those same delirious heights, but we did our best to wring the Dickens out of it.

Next week, it’s our hope to conclude 2022 with something very special indeed. Unless it falls through, which it probably will, in which case we’ll have to push it back to January and do something else instead. Watch this space for further developments!

At the very least, I won’t make the same mistake as last night and will be sure to have a cup of cheer on hand to toast you, when you join us in the comments section. We’ll be slow-dancing to Guy Lombardo on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc., next Friday evening at 7:30 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

December 23, 2022
Happy Festivus Airing Grievances with Karolju

December 23rd. Happy Festivus! Let the airing of grievances begin.

Then enjoy this postmodern, pandenominational, mid-winter concoction by Christopher Rouse, called “Karolju.” The title, fabricated by the composer, puts an Old World spin on the word “carol.” The “ju” is merely because, as Rouse states, he happens to like words that end in “u.” The text is totally pidgin, and the musical allusions to Orff, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, Prokofiev, and others only add to the fun.

Limber up for the feats of strength, then gather ‘round the Festivus pole. Truly, it’s a Festivus for the rest of us.

December 23, 2022
Puccini’s Christmas La Bohème Origins

Puccini?! What you doing, being born so close to Christmas?

No matter, here’s a student work, his “Capriccio sinfonico.” Puccini wrote the piece in 1883, while still at the Milan Conservatory. You may recognize some of the music since he later recycled it in his most frequently performed opera, “La bohème.” You’ll detect the bohemians at around the 4-minute mark.

Now that you’re in the mood for hopeless Christmas romance, here’s Luciano Pavarotti and company in Acts I & II of “La bohème,” set on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, the production is directed by Gian Carlo Menotti (he of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” fame). Mimi is sung by Fiamma Izzo d’Amico – no relation, surely?

December 22, 2022
Godfrey Winham’s Jingle Bells a Christmas Music Gem

If you need to get away from the candles and clove of Windham Hill, there’s always Godfrey Winham.

When Winham takes on a Christmas classic, it’s like a great, big, satisfying ice ball in the face of George Winston. He’s as bracing as a ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

Winham is probably best-known for his role right here in Princeton as an electronic music pioneer. As might be expected, this didn’t lead to a lot of toe-tappers. One day, after listening to some of Windham’s music, his son asked him if he could write something a bit simpler. This was the impetus for a 26-minute set of keyboard meditations on a familiar Christmas tune, titled “Variations on a Theme by James Pierpont” – otherwise known as “The Jingle Bells Variations.”

This is music a grown-up Schroeder would be proud to own. You can listen to it here, starting about 26 minutes into the program

https://www.wwfm.org/webcasts/2018-12-25/a-between-the-keys-christmas-special

If you are at all interested in Princeton and the history of computer music, and you haven’t checked out this podcast yet, you owe it to yourself to do so:

Composers & Computers, a podcast

Winham features most prominently – and poignantly – in Episode 3:

Episode 3: The Converter

I wrote about the podcast and its producer, Aaron Nathans, back in September for an article in U.S. 1.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/a-good-ear-for-stories-and-electronic-music-inspires-a-princeton-podcast/article_93780110-3384-11ed-93a9-1ba8b9106ed7.html

This is my favorite version of “Jingle Bells” – presented by the Robert DeCormier Singers as it was originally published in 1857.

BONUS! Leopold Mozart’s “A Musical Sleigh Ride,” complete with neighing horses, excitable hounds, and whip cracks. As a radio host, I made it a point to share this fun recording with the Eduard Melkus Ensemble every year on my last shift before Christmas. At home, it drove the dogs crazy.

With extreme winter weather expected to disrupt travel and last-minute Christmas shopping across much of the country, there’s plenty of music about winter recreation to fuel your imagination as you cozy-in around the hearth.

December 22, 2022
Stanley Drucker Legendary Clarinetist Dies at 93

Another piece of living history has left us. Clarinetist Stanley Drucker died on Monday, at the age of 93.

Drucker played with the New York Philharmonic for over 60 years. For 49 of those, he served as principal (beginning in 1960). In total, he played some 10,200 concerts in New York. He appeared as soloist with the orchestra some 150 times. On June 4, 2009, he was acknowledged with a Guinness World Record for longest career as a clarinetist, logging his Philharmonic career at 62 years, 7 months, and 1 day.

Prior to his New York tenure, he played with the Indianapolis Symphony (from the age of 16!). On the journey from Indianapolis to New York, he also managed to work with Adolf Busch’s Busch Little Symphony and serve as principal clarinetist with the Buffalo Philharmonic.

In 2007, Gustavo Dudamel said of Drucker, “He’s a legend. The history of the orchestra is in him.”

R.I.P.

Drucker, described here by Leonard Bernstein as “our orchestra’s high-priced soloist,” playing his signature piece, the Copland Clarinet Concerto (following a four-minute Bernstein intro)

The Carl Nielsen concerto (done all in one take, in an era before digital editing)

The world premiere of the John Corigliano concerto (written for him)

New York Philharmonic tribute

Profile on ABC News, upon his retirement from the Philharmonic at the age of 80

December 21, 2022

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