It seems as if it was only a matter of time before any Baroque musician of merit would become embroiled in a musical duel.
In the case of Domenico Scarlatti, he was challenged by none other than George Frideric Handel, in Rome. The resulting contest led to Handel being judged superior to his rival on the organ; however, on the harpsichord Scarlatti was deemed to be supreme. In fact, Scarlatti’s unusual facility at the keyboard has had artists “keyed up” for centuries.
Born in Naples in 1685 – the same year as Handel and Bach – Scarlatti spent much of his career in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He wrote 555 keyboard sonatas, which have been admired by composer-performers from Frederic Chopin to Marc-André Hamelin.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll enjoy several works written in tribute to this Baroque master.
Charles Avison, whose life overlapped Scarlatti’s own (he was born in 1709, when Scarlatti was 23 years-old), arranged a number of his elder colleague’s keyboard works into a set of 12 concerti grossi. We’ll sample one of those, Avison’s Concerto No. 10 in D.
Then we’ll turn to American composer Norman Dello Joio. Dello Joio was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1957 for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” From 1979, we’ll hear his four-movement piano work, “Salute to Scarlatti.”
Dmitri Shostakovich arranged two of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas for small wind ensemble and percussion. We’ll enjoy performances of these by members of the former USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky.
Finally, Alfredo Casella’s 1926 suite for piano and orchestra, “Scarlattiana,” draws its inspiration from dozens of Scarlatti sonatas. Though unquestionably high-spirited, it was not originally intended for the dance – but since it unabashedly recalls Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella,” it is hardly surprising that some clown decided to choreograph it.
I hope you’ll join me for a mixed salad of Scarlatti tributes, on “Italian Dressing,” 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 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
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PHOTO: Wladimir Skouratoff (levitating) and Jacqueline Moreau in a 1954 production of “Scarlattiana”
Category: Daily Dispatch
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On a Scale from One to Ten, He Was an Imperfect Ten(nstedt)
Klaus Tennstedt was a mess. But when he came to Philadelphia, his concerts were always something special. Never pedestrian. He was especially celebrated for his Mahler, a composer with whom he shared a neurotic affinity.
He suffered from a fragile ego, crippling stage-fright, ailments real and imagined, and absolute cluelessness as to how to navigate the world. He lived only for music, cigarettes, and women.
He is a prime example of a magnetic interpreter whose power didn’t always transfer to his recordings. Or if it did, it often seemed as if it was at a remove. Which I realize is a ridiculous thing to say. Listening to a recording can’t possibly be the same as being there. But in concert, you got the full package. The last thing on Tennstedt’s mind was “posterity.” A live performance lives in the moment. You experienced the musicmaking in your heart and in your gut.
I was just thinking about Tennstedt last week and wondering if I was as crazy as he was. On one memorable occasion, I attended one of his concerts with no less than three girlfriends (at the time, two former and one current). To my knowledge, that’s the only time I ever did that.
Tennstedt might have been the sweatiest conductor I ever saw. The guy always looked like he just rolled out of bed, badly shaken by the night terrors. He was an interesting character. The world of classical music is a lot blander without him.
Saluting him on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
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Live performance of Mahler Symphony No. 3
Richard Strauss, “Four Last Songs”
Sweaty Wagner fest!
An interesting write-up, in connection with a Tennstedt biography -
Say I Do to June Weddings on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” hie thee to the church on time. it’s an hour of June weddings!
We’ll have a comedy overture, “The Tinker’s Wedding,” by English composer Havergal Brian. Brian attained notoriety for his “Gothic Symphony,” a work so grand it entered the Guinness Book, when it was acknowledged as the world’s largest symphony. He composed 32 symphonies in all, 20 of them after the age of 80!
We’ll also hear a wedding march by Alexander Glazunov, composed to mark his parents’ silver anniversary and a processional by Philadelphia composer Robert Moran, written as a wedding gift for his friend, organist Robert Ridgell (then of Trinity Wall Street).
Camille Saint-Saëns wrote his confectionery, the “Wedding Cake,” a work for piano and orchestra, as a matrimonial offering to former Liszt pupil Caroline de Serres Wieczffinski (née Montigny-Rémaury). Imagine trying to fit that name on an invitation.
Speaking of the piano, anyone who took lessons surely bears the scars of Carl Czerny. But Czerny composed more than just exercises and etudes. We’ll hear his “Fantaisie brillante” on themes from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.”
We’ll also hear a work by Wolfie’s father, Leopold Mozart, a raucous, descriptive symphony called “The Peasant Wedding.” And a rowdy wedding it is!
Once experienced, there’s no turning back, so we’ll wrap things up with violinist Lara St. John’s polka band, Polkastra, and the “Shotgun Wedding March,” from their album, “I Do.” And I think you’ll agree, Spike Jones would be proud.
Look for me in my squirting boutonniere. Say “I do” to “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/ -
Old World Composers Go West on “Picture Perfect”
Before American composers like Jerome Moross and Elmer Bernstein made the western distinctly their own, the task of scoring the genre fell largely to European émigrés. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll take a look at some outside perspectives on how the West was won.
Literally the godson of Richard Strauss, Max Steiner came from Vienna, where he studied with Johannes Brahms and Robert Fuchs. In Hollywood, he wound up scoring such classics as “King Kong,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.”
Among his over 300 film projects were a number of westerns. One of these was “They Died with Their Boots On” (1941), which starred Errol Flynn as George Armstrong Custer and Olivia de Havilland as Libby, the woman who becomes his wife. Steiner’s score features familiar folk material, some old-fashioned faux “Indian” music, and one of his characteristically lush love themes.
Born in Ukraine in 1894, Dimitri Tiomkin was a pupil of Alexander Glazunov. He came to revolutionize the sound of the American West, when he wrote the music for “High Noon,” the first of his “ballad” scores. Advance word, based on an early screening for the press, was that the picture would be a failure. However, Tiomkin had such faith in the theme song, sung in the film by Tex Ritter, that he hired Frankie Laine to record it, and the record became a world-wide hit. In fact, his score is largely credited with having saved the film.
Tiomkin was recognized with two Academy Awards: one for Best Original Song, and one for the score itself. It was the first time a composer won two Oscars for his work on the same movie. It also changed the way western scores were done. In the 1950s, Tiomkin became THE western composer of choice. He produced a number of subsequent ballad scores, including that for “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957). Asked how it was that a composer from Ukraine could write so convincingly for the American West, Tiomkin quipped, “A steppe is a steppe is a steppe.”
Another unexpected source of classic western music, Franz Waxman was born in Upper Silesia. He arrived in the U.S. by way of Germany. Nonetheless, as part of the composer’s varied and prolific output, he did indeed score a number of films in the genre, including “The Furies” (1950), a peculiar noir-western hybrid. Walter Huston, in his final film, plays a cattle baron who remarries and throws his empire into jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck is his strong-willed daughter.
Hungarian-born composer Miklós Rózsa scored many films with historical settings – “Quo Vadis,” “Ben-Hur,” and “King of Kings,” among them. However, to my knowledge, his only western was “Tribute to a Bad Man” (1956). James Cagney stars as a rancher who doles out some frontier justice.
Finally, we’ll hear music by Ennio Morricone, from arguably the most operatic of all spaghetti westerns, “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968). As a reaction to Tiomkin’s ballad scores and the neo-Coplandisms of Elmer Bernstein and the rest, Morricone brings his own quirky sensibility to bear on the classic western iconography. Get ready for indelible motifs for harmonica and banjo, but also an unexpectedly moving elegiac arioso, underscoring the close of the American West with the arrival of the railroad.
Doublecheck your train tables and wind your pocket watches. Old World composers go west this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, 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 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 -
My Two Cents About Antonio Salieri
Today’s post began as a response to a question by Jon Haag at the bottom of yesterday’s remarks about the Bard Music Festival, in which I shared news of some newly-rediscovered music by Antonio Salieri: “Do these new found works bring a better appreciation of Antonio’s works or is that still up for debate?”
But of course, I got carried away – enough so that I thought, “Hey, I could use this for today’s post.” With that in mind, here are my two cents about Salieri.
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I’m not sure how much is up for debate, really, once people’s awareness is expanded beyond “Amadeus” – a great play and a great film, but reminiscent of my remark on your Freddie Mercury biopic comment the other day, the figure of Salieri was leveraged for dramatic purposes. The historic Salieri was never the envious, scheming hack of Peter Shaffer’s imagination. However, thanks to “Amadeus,” that’s how he is widely perceived.
Ironically, if not for the widespread success of the movie, most people would probably never even have heard of him. So poor Antonio has Shaffer to thank, at least, for making him a household name.
Incidentally, Shaffer was not the first to tell this story. Rumors of Salieri having contributed to Mozart’s early demise have followed him down the centuries. It was the subject of a play by Pushkin and an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov. But it’s all bunk.
Happily, the resulting prurient interest also spurred a revival of performances and recordings of his music. And you know what? The music is not half-bad. Don’t pay attention to the blithe dismissals of classical music know-it-alls (as the genre surely does attract its share of bitchy wisenheimers).
Was Salieri as “good” as Mozart? Of course not. But who was? His music may lack the facility, invention, and humanity of Mozart at his finest. But Salieri was certainly capable, he could delight or be dramatic, and he could write a good tune. I don’t claim to be a Salieri expert, but I have heard more of his music than most.
As for the rediscovery of these 149 pieces, I very much doubt they will change his standing, as it were, but yes, more information always brings a better appreciation, or at least a more complete understanding. It’s seldom that a musical manuscript is discovered that completely revolutionizes anyone’s perception of a composer. It’s more like filling in a detail on a portrait or finding a missing puzzle piece.
These particular works are interesting in that they reveal something of his friendship with confidant and kindred spirit Prince Joseph von Dietrichstein. The pieces were copied in the composer’s own hand, cherrypicked for inclusion in four red leatherbound volumes, presumably to commemorate works of his that were performed at the prince’s gatherings.
Lost works by major composers actually turn up with surprising frequency. A “new” song by Ralph Vaughan Williams was discovered only a few weeks ago. A couple of years ago, there was a waltz attributed to Chopin. The biggest one in recent memory was the rediscovery of a work by Stravinsky, written in memory of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. It’s no masterwork, but it’s interesting, in light of the two composers’ relationship. But it’s still an early work and doesn’t particularly sound like the influential composer Stravinsky was soon to become.
Once in a while, somebody thinks they landed a big fish. In the early 20th century, a new “Beethoven” symphony was found. Of course, it turned out to be by somebody else. In the earlier ‘80s, there was a hullabaloo about a rediscovered Mozart symphony – also probably not by him, but I like it.
Salieri composed 37 operas, in addition to orchestral works, concertos, chamber music, and sacred pieces. His own music aside, he was an influential figure, as Imperial Kapellmeister at the Habsburg court in Vienna. Among his pupils were Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, and Mozart’s son, Franz Xaver.
Far from blackballing his colleague, Salieri revived “The Marriage of Figaro.” He was also responsible for arranging first performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 (K. 482), the Clarinet Quintet, and the Symphony No. 40. He was full of praise for “The Magic Flute.”
The two composers even collaborated on a cantata, “Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia” (“For the recovered health of Ophelia”), rediscovered in 2016. The cantata was written in 1785, to celebrate the recently-convalesced soprano Nancy Storace, who was soon to create the role of Susanna in Mozart’s “Figaro.”
This will be one of the works performed at this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Mozart and His World” – as mentioned in yesterday’s post, archived at the link:
https://rossamico.com/2026/06/03/mozart-and-his-world-including-salieri-at-the-bard-music-festival/
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Salieri, Concerto for Flute, Oboe and Orchestra
Mozart and Salieri collaborative effort, the cantata “Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia”
Rediscovered “Odense” Symphony, attributed to Mozart
Stravinsky’s “Funeral Song”
Waltz attributed to Chopin
News of Salieri rediscoveries, now in English
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