Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

  • St Patrick’s Day Classical Music Mixtape

    St Patrick’s Day Classical Music Mixtape

    ST. PATRICK’S MIXTAPE

    It pains me not to be there with you all today. I love programming for holidays, and St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorites. Undoubtedly, I’ll be spinning wall-to-wall St. Patrick’s music at home. As a way of sharing some of it with you, here are some links to just a few of my favorites. You may be puzzled by the inclusion of composers like Handel, Beethoven, and Frank Martin, but everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day! A hoist of my Irish coffee to you!

    Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, “Irish Rhapsody No. 5”

    Sir Hamilton Harty, “Three Miniatures for Oboe and Piano”

    Edward Joseph Collins, Irish Rhapsody “Hibernia”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XykGEnuhiwc

    Beethoven, “Irish Folk Songs’ (with Robert White, Ani Kafavian, Yo-Yo Ma, and Samuel Sanders):

    I. “The Pulse of an Irishman”

    II. “The Kiss, Dear Maid, Thy Lip Has Left”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhGmLXcHa8

    III. “Come Draw We Round the Cheerful Ring”

    Frank Martin, “Piano Trio on Irish Folk Tunes” (Martin was Swiss)

    Sir Arthur Sullivan, “Irish Symphony”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzGMyQugBo8

    Sir Arnold Bax, “The Garden of Fand”

    Samuel Barber, “Reincarnations” (on texts by James Stephens)

    Ben Johnston, String Quartet No. 10 (a microtonal piece that teases a tune that – spoiler altert – blossoms into “Danny Boy!”)

    Henry Cowell, “Two Bits for Flute and Piano”:

    I. A Tuneful Bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bswlYBNt20

    II. A Blarneying Bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Sp6UVY3qA

    Ina Boyle, Symphony No. 1 “Glencree” (a pupil of Vaughan Williams)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR3MF7wkBlI

    Joan Trimble, “Suite for Strings”

    John McCormack sings:

    I. “The Garden Where the Praties Grow”

    II. “She Moved Thro’ the Fair”

    III. “Off to Philadelphia”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVsFOtYmXFg

    George Frideric Handel (arr. De Dannan), “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba in Galway Bay”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB8NhXtgG_A

    Hard to stop there, but I’ll want to get this posted. Sláinte!

    WWFM – The Classical Network

  • Lost Chord Webcast Faith and Begorrah

    Lost Chord Webcast Faith and Begorrah

    Faith and Begorrah! “The Lost Chord” has been posted as a webcast!

    https://www.wwfm.org/post/lost-chord-march-15-sharing-green

  • Picture Perfect St Patricks Day Radio

    Picture Perfect St Patricks Day Radio

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day! “Picture Perfect” has been posted as a webcast.

    Gentlemen, the drinks are on the house!

    Well, they are…

    https://www.wwfm.org/post/picture-perfect-march-13-presentiments-st-patrick

    PHOTO: Barry Fitzgerald and his breakfast of champions

  • John Addison’s Centennial A Musical Tribute

    John Addison’s Centennial A Musical Tribute

    Today is the 100th birthday of Academy Award winning composer John Addison.

    Addison was awarded his statuette for “Tom Jones” in 1964. The score is a brilliant admixture of unusual instrumentation (harpsichord, well-worn upright, banjo, accordion) and music hall brio.




    Addison also provided the memorable music for “Sleuth.”

    And, for television, “Murder She Wrote.”

    Addison was the composer to whom Alfred Hitchcock turned, notoriously, after his falling out with Bernard Herrmann over the scoring of “Torn Curtain.” The studio was pressuring Hitch for a more “popular” sound. Ironically, Addison just wound up trying to conjure Herrmann – as did every one of Hitch’s collaborators thereafter.

    Addison also provided music for “The Entertainer,” “A Taste of Honey,” “The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner,” “Start the Revolution Without Me,” “Luther,” “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution,” “A Bridge Too Far,” and the television miniseries “Centennial.”

    A student of Gordon Jacob at the Royal College of Music in London, he wrote a number of concert works, though he remarked, “If you find you’re good at something, as I was as a film composer, it’s stupid to do anything else.”

    Here is Addison’s Trumpet Concerto:



    Over a half century before Warren Beauty and Faye Dunaway got caught up in the infamous “La La Land” snafu, Sammy Davis Jr. was bitten by “Tom Jones”:

    Happy birthday, John Addison!

  • Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Pioneering Flutist, Dies at 98

    Doriot Anthony Dwyer, Pioneering Flutist, Dies at 98

    Flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer has died. Dwyer served as principal flute of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1990. She was one of the first women to win a principal chair in a major U.S. orchestra.*

    Understandably, this was a very big deal. Back in the day, Boston didn’t even have a separate dressing room for women. Early notices were all about her gender and good looks, but soon it was her playing that was receiving raves. She won over players, audiences, and critics alike.

    To mark her retirement, the orchestra commissioned for her a flute concerto from Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Zwilich was the first female recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music (in 1983!).

    Prior to her tenure in Boston, she was second flute with the National Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and served as principal flute at the Hollywood Bowl. Early in her career, she also played with Frank Sinatra and the Ballets Russes.

    Dwyer died on Saturday at the age of 98.

    • Dwyer was preceded by, at the very least, Florence Wightman (principal harp, Cleveland Orchestra, 1929-30), Alice Chalifoux (principal harp, Cleveland Orchestra, 1931-74), Edna Philips (principal harp, Philadelphia Orchestra, 1930-41 and 1942-46), and Helen Kotas (principal horn, Chicago Symphony, 1941-48).

    An interview with Doriot Anthony Dwyer, in three parts:



    Dwyer with Leonard Bernstein conducting “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”

    Debussy Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9frKtO0nRn8

    Prokofiev Flute Sonata:

    Ellen Taffe Zwilich Flute Concerto:

    Charles Munch bringing Dwyer forth for a solo bow (at the very end of the video)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrMnUUWTBd4

    PHOTO: Doriot Anthony Dwyer, with harpist Olivia Luetcke and cellist Winifred Winograd (courtesy of the Boston Symphony Orchestra)

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