Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Adolphus Hailstork MLK Tribute on WWFM

I’ve been a fan of Adolphus Hailstork since the 1980s. That’s when I first heard “Done Made My Vow,” as part of a concert broadcast over the radio.

“Done Made My Vow” (1985), often described as a gospel oratorio, was inspired in part by speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. So uplifting was the marriage of words and music, I hoped for years that it would be recorded. Then one day I stumbled across a copy in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gift shop.

On the eve of MLK Day, I hope you’ll join me for this extraordinary piece, scored for speaker, chorus and orchestra. It’s my featured highlight this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord.”

Hailstork has been part of the fabric of American music since at least the 1970s. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1941, he earned his BA from Howard University, his MA from the Manhattan School of Music – where his teachers included with Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond – and his doctorate from Michigan State, where his studied with H. Owen Reed. Then he was off, like so many of his great American forebears, to study at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger. Hailstork is now composer-in-residence at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

He is perhaps best known for his choral music, though it was the wistful slow movement of his Symphony No. 1, composed for a summer music festival in Ocean Grove, New Jersey, that next caught my ear.

His brief but boisterous curtain-raiser “Celebration!” was included in Paul Freeman’s legendary “Black Composers Series,” recorded for Columbia Records back in the 1970s. Freeman remained a champion of Hailstork’s work for the rest of his career. I particularly recommend his recording of “Sonata da Chiesa,” a multi-movement work for string orchestra, inspired by Hailstork’s impressions as a boy chorister singing at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany.

As preamble to the oratorio, we’ll also enjoy his rhythmically exciting “Variations for Trumpet” (1981).

The music is hale, but the sentiments are King. I hope you’ll join me for “Done Made My Vow.” That’s “All Hail Hailstork,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

“Sonata da Chiesa” (1992):

Symphony No. 1 (1988): Mov’t II, Lento ma non troppo:

“Motherless Child” (2002):

“Celebration!” (1974):

January 19, 2020
Mummers Exhibit Opens at Trenton Library

If you’re one of those people who gets stir crazy even at the thought of snow, perhaps this is just the thing for you.

Dan Aubrey, my long-suffering arts editor at U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, is displaying his Philadelphia Mummers photos, alongside those of retired newspaper photographer Bryan Grigsby, as part of the exhibition “Mummers X 2,” at Trenton Free Public Library through February 28.

A reception will be held at the library this afternoon from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m., and I’m told there will be complimentary Philly soft pretzels. Everyone craves carbs when it snows, right? Just be careful driving.

Mummers x 2 Exhibit Opens at Trenton Public Library

SO META: A photo of Dan (left), posing with a Mummer, who in turn is holding a magazine with a photo of a Mummer taken by Dan

January 18, 2020
Tuckwell’s Mozart Horn Grooves

Barry Tuckwell’s grooviest Mozart?

January 17, 2020
Remembering Barry Tuckwell on The Classical Network

This afternoon on The Classical Network, we’ll remember Barry Tuckwell. Tuckwell, one of the greatest hornists of his generation, died yesterday at the age of 88. He was one-time principal horn of the London Symphony Orchestra, who splintered off to record widely as a soloist.

We’ll begin the 4:00 hour today, with some samples of his artistry (Telemann, Knussen and Strauss). Then we’ll observe the anniversaries of the birthdays of Wilhelm Kienzl, François-Joseph Gossec, Ulysses Kay, and Afro-Cuban violinist José Silvestre White y Lafitte.

At 6:00, it’s an hour of dystopian visions on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, including selections from “Fahrenheit 451” (Bernard Herrmann), “WALL-E” (Thomas Newman), “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” (John Williams), and “Metropolis” (Gottfried Huppertz).

That should be enough to wet your whistle. Music is our valve, as we celebrate Tuckwell and company, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST time, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 17, 2020
Dystopian Film Soundtracks

If you think the world is in rough shape now, consider tomorrow.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” gaze into the crystal ball for an hour of dystopian visions – glimpses of a bleak future rendered hopeful, in large part, through music.

“Fahrenheit 451” (1966), based on the Ray Bradbury novel, presents a society in which books are outlawed by the state and burned as a means to control the masses. The title refers to the alleged temperature at which paper will ignite. Oskar Werner and Julie Christie star in this Francois Truffaut-directed film. Composer Bernard Herrmann finds the heart at fire’s center.

A robot is left behind to clean up a long-abandoned Planet Earth, in “WALL-E” (2008), one of Pixar’s finely-crafted entertainments. This one has a serious subtext, about rampant consumerism and its impact on an earth made uninhabitable by the sheer volume of garbage. But there’s also a love story, as WALL-E pursues another robot into outer space, with fate-changing consequences. The inventive score is by Thomas Newman.

As dystopias go, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” (2001) is a little more unpleasant than most. “A.I.” grew out of an incomplete project of Stanley Kubrick. Based on Brian Aldiss’s short story, “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long,” the film stars Haley Joel Osment as a child-like android programmed to love, only to be rejected by his adopted family. Abrasive blood sport, unpleasant visions of a debauched city, and human extinction ensue. A great time is had by all!

Also, the film doesn’t know when to end. I hate this movie.

That said, John Williams gives it his usual best. The voice of soprano Barbara Bonney graces the admittedly gorgeous soundtrack.

One of the landmarks of silent cinema, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927) is an eerily prescient vision of a world divided between the “haves” and “have-nots.” Once seen, the subterranean hell of the workers “hive” is not soon to be forgotten. So much of the film continues to resonate, even as its iconography is shamelessly recycled.

Gottfried Huppertz’s original score already adheres to the Straussian model of Golden Age film scores, with leitmotifs representing the characters and ideas. It’s a concept that became associated with Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and which has had an enormous influence on film composers down through the decades, all the way to John Williams and beyond.

Learn more about the challenges of writing such a complex score – which was performed live, with orchestra, at showings of the movie, even as the film was still being edited right up until its premiere – when listening to tonight’s show.

In the meantime, hang on to your humanity! Join me for these cautionary tales about totalitarian government, corporate control, and technology gone awry, on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 17, 2020

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