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Category: Daily Dispatch

Classical Music Today on The Classical Network

Afro-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) scored his biggest hit with “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.” The cantata became something of a cultural phenomenon between the wars. Sir Malcolm Sargent led performances of the piece annually, from 1928 to 1939, in a costumed, semi-ballet version, featuring close to a thousand performers. Unfortunately, the composer did not live to enjoy his success, nor did his heirs receive any royalties, as he had sold the music outright (for 15 guineas – about $2160 US).

We’ll get a taste of “Hiawatha” at 2:00 this afternoon on The Classical Network. “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast” is the first part of a larger oratorio, “The Song of Hiawatha.” A complete recording, released on the Argo label back in 1992, features a rising star by the name of Bryn Terfel – but it is Arthur Davies who sings the work’s hit tune, “Onaway! Awake, Beloved!”

Antonin Dvořák was also very much enamored with Longfellow’s most famous poem. It’s said that he jotted the theme for the slow movement to his Sonatina for Violin and Piano, Op. 100, onto his starched cuff during a visit to Minnehaha Falls. The melody became popularized as “Indian Lament.” Dvořák wrote the Sonatina with his children in mind. We’ll hear it performed by brother and sister Gil and Orli Shaham.

Then stay tuned at 3:00 for William Levi Dawson’s epic “Negro Folk Symphony.” The work was introduced by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934. Dawson revamped the piece in 1952, following a trip to West Africa. It was Stokowski who made the world premiere recording of the symphony, in its revised and expanded form. We’ll hear it played in a fine modern recording by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi.

If you happened to miss David Baker’s Cello Sonata this past Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” tune in today for his “Jazz Suite for Clarinet and Symphony Orchestra: Three Ethnic Dances.” Clarinetist Alan Balter will perform with the Akron Symphony Orchestra.

The afternoon will commence with today’s Noontime Concert, featuring members of the Dolce Suono Ensemble. The group’s flagship trio will present a mix of classics and commissions. The “classics” are by Mendelssohn and Martinu, and the “commissions” were fulfilled by Jeremy Gill and Zhou Tian. The broadcast will conclude with an arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide Overture.” Flutist and founding artistic director Mimi Stillman will be joined by cellist Nathan Vickery and pianist Charles Abramovic. The concert took place on October 14 at Trinity Center for Urban Life, 22nd and Spruce Streets, in Philadelphia.

Dolce Suono’s next concert, “Rediscoveries,” will take place tomorrow night at 7:00, again at Trinity Center for Urban Life. That program will include works by three American masters who were revered at mid-century, but whose music in recent decades has fallen into comparative neglect – Irving Fine, William Schuman, and Norman Dello Joio. Also on the program will be works by Elliot Carter, Leonard Bernstein, Shulamit Ran, and the late Katherine Hoover. For more information, look online at dolcesuono.org.

If you’ve a tooth for “sweet sound” (or “dolce suono”), satisfy the craving from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Coleridge-Taylor and his family, wife Jessie and children Gwendolyn and Hiawatha (rear)

February 19, 2019
Presidential Music for Presidents Day

Hail to the Chiefs!

I hope you’ll join me today on The Classical Network for my annual trip to the Hall of Presidents. We’ll hear works inspired by Thomas Jefferson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and of course Washington and Lincoln.

This year, there will be a few new additions to the assembly of animatronic executives.

Abraham Lincoln inspired more music than can be crammed down a stovepipe hat. Though I already devoted an afternoon to our 16th president on his actual birthday (February 12), I’ve since unearthed a major work I haven’t played before: “Letters from Lincoln,” by Michael Daugherty. As the title suggests, Daugherty builds his character portrait of the Illinois Rail-Splitter using the president’s own words. We’ll hear it sung by Thomas Hampson.

Composer Victoria Bond has written four “portraits of presidential character.” “Soul of a Nation” was released last year on an Albany Records compact disc. Each of the orchestral pieces that make up the album includes parts for narrator and instrumental soloist. The title track incorporates a violin for Thomas Jefferson, “The Indispensible Man” a clarinet for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The Crowded Hours” a trumpet for Theodore Roosevelt, and “Pater Patriae” a flute for George Washington. I’ll select one of these for airplay this afternoon.

Once again, we’ll celebrate Washington (born February 22) with Virgil Thomson’s naïf ballet “Parson Weems and the Cherry Tree,” a Bicentennial commission, George Antheil’s rousing concert overture, “McKonkey’s Ferry (Washington at Trenton),” and John Lampkin’s “George Washington Slept Here.”

To commemorate an American president closer to our own time, Peter Lieberson composed his “Remembering JFK” for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy inauguration. The moving narration, compiled from the president’s own words will be delivered by Richard Dreyfuss. Where have all the statesmen gone?

And to get us ready for The Princeton Festival’s production of John Adams’ “Nixon in China” in June, we’ll listen to “The Chairman Dances.”

As an added curiosity, Chester A. Arthur disliked “Hail to the Chief” so intensely that he asked John Philip Sousa to write a replacement anthem. We’ll find time for that too.

There won’t be any junk mail for you to sift through, and you can’t go to the bank. You might as well get those white sales out of the way early. You’ll want to be back in time to settle in for music inspired by the presidents for #PresidentsDay, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

February 18, 2019
José White’s Lost Chord

His name is as romantic as his music. Tune in tonight to enjoy the Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor from 1864 by José Silvestre de los Dolores White y Lafitte (a.k.a. José White). A cello sonata from 1973 by David Baker and some orchestral miniatures from 1948 by Roque Cordero round out this week’s installment of “The Lost Chord,” the third of four parts devoted to highlights from the compact disc reissue of CBS Records’ visionary Black Composers Series. Join me for “Black to the Future, Part III,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

February 18, 2019
Black Composers Series Rediscovered

To reiterate, the compact disc reissue of CBS Records’ landmark Black Composers Series – available complete for the first time in over 40 years – though lamentably underpublicized, is an event of enormous significance.

These visionary recordings, made under the direction of conductor Paul Freeman (pictured) and employing world class orchestras and soloists, were originally released on vinyl between 1974 and 1978, providing rare exposure to 200 years worth of neglected music at a time when most of it was essentially unknown.

Tune in tonight for the third in a four-part survey of highlights from this exciting boxed set, which was released by Sony Classical just in time for #BlackHistoryMonth.

José Silvestre de los Dolores White y Lafitte (or José or Joseph White, for short) was one of the great romantic violinists. Born in Cuba in 1835, he made his public debut at the age of 18 with the most celebrated North American pianist of the day, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. It was Gottschalk who encouraged White to study at the Paris Conservatory and who raised the money to send him there. This launched the young man on a globetrotting trajectory that sent him all over Europe, the Caribbean, South America, Mexico, and the Northeastern United States.

White died in Paris in 1918. We’ll hear his Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor, played by the prolific and committed Aaron Rosand. Why this is not a repertory piece is anybody’s guess.

David Baker, born in 1931, was professor of jazz studies at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, a program he founded. From 1991 to 2012, he was also director and conductor of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra. On top of everything else, he was extraordinarily productive as a writer and recording artist, leaving over 65 recordings, 70 books, and 400 articles.

Baker died in 2016. He was trained as a trombonist – he was active as a jazz performer throughout the 1940s and early ‘50s – but a facial injury suffered in an automobile accident caused him to switch to the cello. We’ll hear Baker’s Cello Sonata, composed in 1973 for the great Janos Starker, who will perform it with Alain Planès at the keyboard.

Finally, Roque Cordero was born in Panama City in 1917. He studied composition with Ernst Krenek and conducting with Dmitri Mitropolous. He became director of Panama’s Institute of Music and artistic director and conductor of its National Symphony. Later, he was assistant director of the Latin American Music Center, professor of composition at Indiana University, and, from 1972, distinguished professor emeritus at Illinois State University. Cordero died in Dayton, Ohio, in 2008, at the age of 91.

Fascinatingly, Cordero’s music tends to balance Panamanian folklore with more advanced techniques. The boxed set contains not only his Violin Concerto, with Sanford Allen the soloist, but also “Eight Miniatures for Small Orchestra” of 1948. We’ll hear Paul Freeman conduct the latter with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

I hope you’ll join me for “Black to the Future, Part III,” yet another program of highlights from the Sony Classical reissue of CBS Records’ forward-looking Black Composers Series, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

February 17, 2019
Cows Love Music? My Vegetarian Journey Begins

Judging from the number of videos posted on YouTube, this is apparently a thing: impromptu recitals for appreciative cows. (The accordion is particularly well represented.)

I try not to eat much meat anyway, but I am perilously close to vegetarianism.

Accordion:

Trombone:

Violin:

Big band (cows love “Tequila”):

February 16, 2019

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