Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Beethoven & Beyond Sonatina Delights on KWAX

Think a sonatina for mandolin and piano is a bit far-fetched? Tune in to hear what Beethoven made of it.

This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” the unifying theme is sonatinas, or “little” sonatas.

Florent Schmitt’s “Sonatine en Trio” is a happy discovery indeed. There’s a certain neoclassic quality to the music, which we’ll hear in a version for flute, cello and piano, by a French composer whose orchestral works can be quite opulent. The title itself seems to harken back to an earlier time. In fact, the keyboard part was originally conceived for harpsichord. It’s cheering music, and I think you’ll agree, a great start to the day!

Carlos Guastavino is largely remembered for his songs. He wrote his Sonatina while visiting Manuel de Falla, who spent his final years in self-imposed exile in Cordoba, Argentina, following the Spanish Civil War. We’ll hear it performed by Gila Goldstein from a Centaur Records release, “Latin American Piano Gems,” a transporting collection of works by Ernesto Lecuona, Astor Piazzolla, Manuel Ponce, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

We’ll also hear Philadelphia composer Romeo Cascarino’s Bassoon Sonata, written after World War II for his Army buddy Sol Schoenbach, principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. “Sonatina” may not be in the title, but the character is light, and the sonata is only seven minutes long!

The program will also include delights by Federico Moreno Torroba, Eugène Bozza, and Erik Satie.

A cup of coffee, a scone, and a soundtrack of sonatinas. Give thanks for life’s “Small Pleasures” 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/

September 27, 2025
Old West Elegy Movie Music Picture Perfect

With the days growing shorter and the shadows lengthening, we contemplate moseying off into the sunset. This week on “Picture Perfect,” it’s an elegy for the Old West.

By the 1960s, the cinematic western was becoming a victim of its own success. The western had been a popular genre since the silent era, with dozens, of variable quality, released every year. Seemingly the genre hit its peak in the 1950s. One might say, the western suffered the fate of the actual American West, with its mythic resonance choked into clichés by too many settlers.

Also, current events began to color filmmakers’ perceptions of the West, the turbulence surrounding the Vietnam War, the assassinations of both Kennedys and King, and increased suspicion of government making for violent, bloodier and more nihilistic visions of Manifest Destiny. The shift gave rise to the revisionist western, which embraced new realities of dirt, corruption, and moral ambiguity in the West. At the same time, there was a rise in more wistful, elegiac westerns, which seem to bid farewell to beloved western icons like Joel McCrea, Kirk Douglas, and John Wayne.

Common characteristics include the obsolescence of the gunfighter; the free-ranging cowboy fenced off by barbed wire; the encroachment of corporations in the form of railroad and mining interests; horses replaced by automobiles; the six-shooter superseded by the Gatling gun – the land of limitless possibility and moral certitude, subdivided and spoiled by industrialization. Once-heroic figures ride slowly into the sunset, or are killed, their qualities unrecognized, perhaps even willfully rejected, by those who come after.

We’ll hear selections from four elegiac westerns, including “Cheyenne Autumn” (1964), with music by Alex North; “The Shootist” (1976), with music by Elmer Bernstein; “The Wild Bunch” (1969), with music by Jerry Fielding; and “Monte Walsh” (1970), with music by John Barry.

Autumn comes to the Old West, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

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

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

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

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

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: John Wayne and Ron Howard take aim in “The Shootist”

September 26, 2025
Gershwin’s 1932 Radio Show Birthday Treat

Happy birthday, George Gershwin! Here, from 1932, Gershwin plays “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Liza,” the Prelude No. 2, and “I Got Rhythm,” and participates in a quick, evidently-scripted Q&A with host Rudy Vallée on his radio show, “The Fleischmann Hour” (sponsored by Fleischmann’s Yeast).

PHOTO: Rudy Vallée, Irving Berlin, and Gershwin with ASCAP president Gene Buck

September 26, 2025
Bernstein Salutes Shostakovich in Moscow

On Dmitri Shostakovich’s birthday, here’s a wonderful document of Leonard Bernstein saluting the composer in Moscow in 1959, prior to a performance of the “Leningrad Symphony.” A modest man accustomed to stepping very carefully in a totalitarian state (also, he didn’t speak English), Shostakovich isn’t quite sure how to react, but ultimately approaches the stage to shake Bernstein’s hand. Stick around for the end of the video as Bernstein speaks the truth, and lament afresh those who devote their lives to undermining our potential as a species.

Shostakovich composed the symphony, his seventh, as an emblem of hope and defiance during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941. The work was given its premiere in Moscow, by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. It was next performed in the West, in London (by Henry Wood) and New York City (by Toscanini), after the score was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm, by way of Tehran!

The symphony was performed in Leningrad itself on August 9, 1942, with the concert blasted on loudspeakers into the enemy lines after three thousand high-caliber shells had been lobbed into the Germans. Furthermore, Shostakovich employed a grotesque quotation from Hitler’s favorite operetta, “The Merry Widow,” to mock the Nazi “invasion.”

The “Leningrad Symphony” enjoyed tremendous popularity during the war years, but in the decades since, its musical merits have tended to be overshadowed by its propagandistic origins.

One of Bernstein’s most shattering recordings of his later years was of this very work, taken from a live performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and issued on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The recording was recognized with a Grammy Award in 1990 – the year of Bernstein’s death at 72 – for Best Orchestral Performance. Shostakovich died in 1975 at the age of 68.

In 1966, Bernstein paid tribute to Shostakovich for the composer’s 60th birthday, with another characteristically insightful introduction, for one of his televised “Young People’s Concerts,” which again featured a selection from the “Leningrad Symphony” and the complete Symphony No. 9.

Happy birthday, Bernstein-style, Dmitri Shostakovich!

PHOTO: Same tour, different concert: Shostakovich and Bernstein share an ovation after a performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on August 22, 1959

September 25, 2025
Celebrating John Rutter at 80

Oh, where do the years go? It seems only yesterday that I was marking the 75th birthday of John Rutter. Now here we are, at fourscore.

Rutter, of course, is one of England’s most successful choral composers and conductors. It’s impossible to get through the Christmas season without hearing oodles of his work. The bigger pieces can be a little hit and miss (the “Gloria” gets a little too close to Walton at times, and “big” is not really Rutter’s forte), but when he hits, as in the lovely “Requiem,” he is well-nigh irresistible – at least for someone with a cotton candy soul like myself.

Perhaps his music is not your cup of tea, but the choir he built, the Cambridge Singers (founded in 1981), sounds like nobody else. For better or worse, like Ormandy’s Philadelphians, they bring their distinctive sound to everything they touch. The soft glow inspires contentment.

As a young man, Rutter collaborated with the legendary Sir David Willcocks on four volumes of the extraordinarily successful “Carols for Choirs” anthology series, now the most widely used source of carols in the British Anglican tradition, and very popular among choral societies. Willcocks went so far as to describe Rutter as the most gifted composer of his generation. Certainly, his gift for melody has proven inexhaustible.

Rutter was honored with a knighthood in February. What took so long? He’s man and an artist who’s brought a lot of beauty into the world. In today’s climate, it’s a quality that’s become even more precious. He’s the kind of person who deserves to be celebrated.

Happy birthday, Sir John Rutter, and many happy returns.

Rutter’s “Requiem” (1985), the perfect music for autumn, with the Cambridge Singers. Accept no substitutes.

“Candlelight Carol” (1984)

The composer offering insights into his “Requiem,” in 11 segments:

September 24, 2025

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