Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

“The Nutcracker” as Subversive Family Classic

If you ever detected a sinister undertow in Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker,” the source material, by E.T.A. Hoffmann, is much worse.

Hoffmann’s 1816 story focuses on the Nutcracker’s battle with the evil Mouse King, filtered through the vivid imagination of a doomed dreamer with a perpetual mistrust of adults. It’s Herr Drosselmayer all the way, baby.

It often puzzles me how so many adaptations of Hoffmann’s stories gloss over the sinister and the uncanny elements. “The Nutcracker” has its share of up-tempo numbers. They’re mostly the ones we hear in stores while we’re out Christmas shopping. However, there’s little doubt the composer grasped the inexorable undertow of Hoffmann, since his score conveys plenty of anxiety to counterbalance the twee sweets.

Listen to the bass clarinet slither beneath that glittery celesta in the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.” And what’s all that creeping around, with the disturbing sforzandi? There’s something desperate and perhaps a little manic underpinning the magic.

Maurice Sendak completely gets it. If you have never seen Carroll Ballard’s 1986 film of “The Nutcracker,” with the Sendak designs and dancers of Pacific Northwest Ballet, you should make it a point to do so. Its sugar plums are all steeped in acid. Sir Charles Mackerras conducts the London Symphony Orchestra on the soundtrack.

I’m not even sure I could describe the subtext as Freudian. It’s just out there. And it has the best WTF ending of all “Nutcracker” adaptations.

But if it’s snowflakes and flowers you’re interested in, here’s an extended suite of highlights with the Boston Pops conducted by Arthur Fiedler, on Fiedler’s birthday.

Get crackin’!

December 17, 2025
A Lot of Candles for Beethoven and Jane Austen

Beethoven (1770-1827) and Jane Austen (1775-1817) share a birthday!

Although the two were contemporaries, they most certainly never met, although Jane’s family kept music books. 18 collections survive – 600 hundred pieces of sheet music – two of the volumes consisting of music copied out in Jane’s hand.

Beethoven doesn’t appear to have been a great favorite. Rather, the Austens gravitated more toward Clementi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel, and Thomas Arne (Jane painstakingly transcribed the overture to “Artexerxes”). Allegedly, in her novels, Austen mentions only one composer by name: Johann Baptist Cramer. I haven’t read enough of her books (only two, but working on a third), or kept notes, to be sure. But there are allusions to others.

The Austen family music books may be perused online, thanks to the University of Southampton. You’ll find access at the bottom of the page at the link:

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2015/12/jane-austen-music-books.page

Gillian Dooley, who catalogued the contents, has written her own book, “She Played and Sang: Jane Austen and Music” (Manchester University Press, 2024), based on her research.

https://janeaustensworld.com/tag/austen-music-manuscripts/

Of perhaps related interest, Sony Classical recently released an album by Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, “Jane Austen’s Piano,” a recital of works Jane might have known, including music by Handel, Haydn, Kiallmark, and Cramer, as well as a transcription of some of Dario Marianelli’s music for the 2005 film adaptation, “Pride & Prejudice.”

https://www.kannehmasons.com/2025/10/03/jeneba-kanneh-masons-new-ep-jane-austen-piano-coming-december-2025-on-sony-classical/

Jane attended recitals in salon settings and opera performances at Covent Garden when visiting her brother in London. She herself played the piano for pleasure.

Happy 250th birthday, Jane Austen, and happy 255, Beethoven!

December 16, 2025
Ghost of Hanukkah Music Past

At a certain radio station I worked at for nearly 30 years, until I was knocked out of the box by COVID, we put together “theme streams” for holidays and “round” musical birthdays. (I recall participating in streams dedicated to Bruckner, Mahler, and Bernstein, and one devoted to masses!) These involved recording hour-long segments which ran continuously for a set period of time and could be accessed through the station website.

For holidays, we started with Christmas, and of course, I went bananas with it. I can’t tell you how many hours I recorded, and the music was not all the usual stuff – although naturally I interleaved plenty of familiar carols, in interesting arrangements, some by notable composers, some performed by luminous choirs, and some caressed or belted out by the great opera singers. I have a very broad concept of what constitutes Christmas music, and there were plenty of sleigh-rides and wintry scenes interleaved with hundreds of years of classical Christmas works and more popular melodies.

In 2015, we added a Hanukkah stream, which ran for eight days prior to the Christmas stream. I came across this two-hour playlist I compiled, while searching through some old emails yesterday. Of course, I continue to learn new music and listen to new recordings all the time, and had we continued with the theme streams, and if I were still employed there, unquestionably I would have contributed additional hours.

It occurs to me that I probably have the audio for all these produced segments around here somewhere. But for now, on the first day of Hanukkah, I thought you might enjoy running an eye over my playlist for that first Hanukkah theme stream. Keep in mind, there were other segments produced by other hosts, so this is not intended to be comprehensive. But I tried my best with the limited material I then had at my disposal to keep the two hours varied and festive.

Chag sameach!

SEGMENT 1
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RAYMOND GOLDSTEIN – B’rakhot L’hanukka (4:56)
Cantor Simon Spiro/Coro Hebraeico/Neil Levin NAXOS 8.559410

JOHN DUFFY – Heritage: Three Jewish Portraits (10:00)
Milwaukee Sym./Zdenek Macal KOSS CLASSICS 1022

SRUL IRVING GLICK – Suite Hebraique No. 5 (15:15)
Suzanne Shulman, flute; James Campbell, clarinet; Andrew Dawes, violin; Daniel Domb, cello CBC 1046

JOSHUA JACOBSON – Chanukah Variations (7:02)
Zamir Chorale of Boston/Joshua Jacobson HZ 901

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN – 12 Variations on a Theme from Handel’s “Judas Maccabaeus” (11:47)
Mischa Maisky, cello; Martha Argerich, piano DG 437 514-2

VAR./TRAD. – A Taste of Chanukah (11:48)
New England Conservatory Jewish Music Ensemble/Theodore Bikel, Judith Berkson, Elizabeth Parvin, Rebecca Shrimpton, Cantor Morton Shames, vocals ROUNDER 3165

JOHN LEVENTHAL – 1902 (3:49)
John Leventhal and The Mels SIX DEGREES 162-531 069-2

SEGMENT 2
————-

JEFF WARSCHAUER – Dem Helfland’s Tants/The Elephant’s Dance (4:46)
Ensemble/Jeff Warschauer, mandolin; David Harris, trombone OMEGA 3027

LUKAS FOSS – Salomon Rossi Suite (7:48)
Brooklyn Philharmonic/Lukas Foss NEW WORLD 375-2

SALAMONE ROSSI – Psalm 118 (4:49)
The King’s Singers WORLD VILLAGE 468052

SERGEI PROKOFIEV – Overture on Hebrew Themes (7:53)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Claudio Abbado DG 429 396-2

ABRAHAM ELLSTEIN – Hassidic Dance (5:07)
David Krakauer, clarinet/Berlin Radio Sym./Gerard Schwarz NAXOS 8.559403

ABRAHAM ELLSTEIN – Oygn/Eyes (4:02)
Elizabeth Shammash, mezzo-soprano/Vienna Chamber Orch./Elli Jaffe NAXOS 8.559405

ZAMIR BAVEL – Hanukkah Fantasy (12:52)
Tuscon Sym./George Hanson ZPBI 2000

MICHAEL ISAACSON – Aspects of a Great Miracle (9:58)
Souhern Chorale, University of Southern Mississippi/Tim Koch NAXOS 8.559410

LAZAR WEINER – Yosl Klezmer/Yosl the Musician (2:13)
Raphael Frieder, baritone; Yehudi Wyner, piano NAXOS 8.559443

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PHOTO: Chicago Habonim dancers celebrate the first day of Hanukkah in 1958

December 15, 2025
Go Nuts for David Serkin Ludwig’s “Hanukkah Cantata”

Hanukkah begins at sunset. A great time to go nuts for David Serkin Ludwig’s “Hanukkah Cantata.”

Ludwig, a student of Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and Ned Rorem at the Curtis Institute of Music and John Corigliano at Juilliard, is also the nephew of pianist Peter Serkin, the grandson of Rudolf Serkin, and the great-grandson of Adolf Busch. An enviable lineage!

His “Hanukkah Cantata” was written for Choral Arts Philadelphia in 2007, on texts compiled by Cantor Dan Sklar. It was the composer’s aim to integrate Hanukkah songs in their original Hebrew with the narrative taken from Scripture translated into English. He writes, “It was important for me that the piece be set in the ‘vernacular,’ so to speak, but to also preserve what is to me beautiful folk music.”

The work falls into eight movements, wholly befitting the eight-day Festival of Lights.

I found a recording posted on YouTube, with the separate tracks stacked in a playlist, so you can allow it to play through. But if you’re not careful, it will roll into an unrelated ninth track, a Kaddish, at the end.

Happy Hanukkah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6tc0NZT-aE&list=OLAK5uy_mEpyZG6a9B-niO70bgq76tcM2WDiMGBVE&index=6

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Image lifted from All About Squirrels Facebook page

December 14, 2025
It’s the Holidays! Take Time to Smell the Roses on “The Lost Chord”

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we present a Christmas bouquet of sorts.

Hugo Distler’s “Die Weihnachtsgeschichte” (“The Christmas Story”), from 1933, is an otherworldly, a cappella masterpiece, punctuated by seven variations on the carol “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming”). Over the course of some 40 minutes, the work reinvents the Baroque Christmas cantata, after the manner of Heinrich Schütz, and does so quite beautifully, conjuring the calm and quiet of a bygone era. The composer described the piece as “an oratorio with chamber music character.”

Unfortunately, Distler’s life proved anything but calm. A man of conscience, he yet remained in Nazi Germany. He joined the Party with reluctance, when he realized his employment at the Lübeck Conservatory hinged on his doing so. Nevertheless, it did not smooth his path. The war separated him from his family, robbed him of many of his friends, and battered his psyche with nerve-wracking aerial assaults. Job pressures and fear of being conscripted into the German army further contributed to his anxiety.

Furthermore, his devotion to sacred music put him at odds with the authorities, who were intent on twisting the Lutheran Church to its own ends. The Nazis wound up branding Distler’s works “entartete,” or “degenerate.” Unable to reconcile the irreconcilable – serving both God and the Nazis – one day he pushed his bed into the kitchen and turned on the gas, committing suicide in 1942. He was 34 years-old.

Emil Waldteufel, by contrast, enjoyed much success and happiness. Although he was nearly 40 by the time he achieved international fame, his waltzes had long been a mainstay of Paris society during the Second Empire. It was the Prince of Wales – the future King Edward VII – who introduced him to London, where his music came to dominate Queen Victoria’s state balls at Buckingham Palace. One of his best-known works, “Les Patineurs” (“The Skaters’ Waltz”) was introduced there in 1882.

For our purposes, we’ll round out the hour with one of Waldteufel’s most successful waltzes from the other end of the decade, “Roses de Noël.”

The holidays are in bloom this week. I hope you’ll join me for “Christmas Roses,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 13, 2025

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