Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Mykola Leontovych Carol of the Bells Composer

Today is the birthday of Mykola Leontovych (1877-1921). You may not know his name, but you most certainly know “Carol of the Bells.”

Leontovych conceived “Carol of the Bells” as “Shchedryck” in 1919. It is actually a New Year’s carol, traditionally sung in Ukraine on the eve of the Julian New Year (January 13). The title is derived from the Ukrainian word for “bountiful.” The original text is about a swallow that foretells great fortune with the arrival of spring:

A little swallow flew
and started to twitter,
to summon the master:
“Come out, come out, O master,
look at the sheep pen,
there the ewes have yeaned
and the lambkins have been born
Your goods are great,
you will have a lot of money.
If not money, then chaff:
you have a dark-eyebrowed wife.”
Shchedryk, shchedryk, a shchedrivka,
A little swallow flew.

The song was popularized in the West, following an appearance at Carnegie Hall in 1921 by the Ukrainian Republic Cappella, a group which Leontovych co-founded. American choral master Peter Wilhousky, himself of Ukrainian stock, was in the audience. He outfitted the melody with new lyrics to create “Carol of the Bells.”

I’m always sorry to have to define a composer, in part, through the manner of his death, since that is what we always seem to remember. Unfortunately, the circumstances of Leontovych’s demise were extraordinary enough to invite comment. He happened to be visiting his parents’ house for Christmas in 1921, when a traveler came to the door and requested lodging for the night. The stranger was put up in a room with Leontovych. At sunrise, Leontovych was shot and the family robbed.

The murder may have been politically motivated. The Ukrainian Republic Cappella was active in promoting Ukrainian independence, and Leontovych had earned his share of enemies. His eldest daughter recalled him saying that he had documents that would allow him to leave the country for Romania. He claimed those papers had been rifled through. Also, the stranger turned out to be an agent of the secret police.

Do you know the legend of the Christmas Spider? The Eastern European folk tale tells of a poor but hard-working widow who can’t afford to decorate the family tree (a chance result of a fallen pine cone) that happens to be growing in the middle of the house. The family is too poor to decorate, but the children awake on Christmas morning to find the branches bedecked with spider webs that turn to gold and silver, at one stroke saving the holiday and rescuing them all from poverty.

The story is not for the arachnophobic, as it is often told from the perspective of spiders. Anyway, if you ever wondered at the spider web ornaments that turn up on Christmas trees from time to time, you need wonder no more.

December 13, 2018
Danish Light: Kuhlau, Nielsen & Marlboro

As we approach the shortest day, it’s all the more important to keep looking on the bright side.

Just ask German-Danish composer Friedrich Kuhlau. At the age of seven, Kuhlau lost an eye when he slipped on the ice and fell on a bottle. In 1810, he fled to Copenhagen to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army. There, he struggled to gain acceptance into Danish musical life. It was a bumpy ride, marked by modest success and spectacular failure.

Then, only a few years after he scored his greatest hit, in 1828, with incidental music to the play “Elverhøj” (“The Elf’s Hill”), his house caught fire. He was forced to spend most of the night out in the freezing cold, as a result of which he developed a chest ailment that drove him to an untimely death at the age of 46.

Happily, his ill-fortune is nowhere in evidence in his flute quintets. We’ll hear one of them on this week’s “Music from Marlboro.” The Flute Quintet in D major, Op. 51, No. 1, will be performed by flutist Julia Bogorad, violinist Ralph Evans, violists Ira Weller and Samuel Rhodes, and cellist Marcy Rosen, at the 1979 Marlboro Music Festival.

Like “The Ugly Duckling” of his compatriot, Hans Christian Andersen, Carl Nielsen emerged from humble beginnings to blossom into Denmark’s national composer. Internationally, Nielsen has flitted in and out of the seemingly inescapable shadow of Finnish master Jean Sibelius. Both men were born in 1865. In fact, Nielsen was six months older. But it is an unfair comparison, not so much apples and oranges; more like kipper and pickled herring.

The very fact that Nielsen is not referred to reductively as “The Sibelius of Denmark” is attributable to an unusually strong individual voice. His music is modern, yet traditional; Scandinavian, yet Germanic. Most important, it is full of personality, freshness and vitality.

Nielsen’s Wind Quintet of 1922 reflects the composer’s optimism and good humor. These he retained despite great personal, professional, and global turmoil. Each part of the quintet was tailored to the personality of the individual performer for which it was written (members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet). There is also something of the outdoors about the piece. Nielsen was always fascinated by nature, and there are ample suggestions of bird song woven into the texture of the work’s pastoral neoclassicism.

We’ll enjoy a recording made at Marlboro in 1971, with flutist Paula Robison, oboist Joseph Turner, clarinetist Larry Combs, bassoonist William Winstead, and hornist Robin Graham.

Lighten up with an hour of Danish quintets, on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTOS: Tak for kaffe, with cheese Danish: the young Carl Nielsen

December 12, 2018
Icelandic Yule Lads Mischief and Mayhem

December 12. Here come the Yule Lads!

What’s that? You’re unfamiliar with the Icelandic tradition of the Yule Lads? This unruly party is clearly a precursor to the thirteen dwarves [sic] who enlist a certain Hobbit as “burglar,” eating him out of house and home and imperiling his dishes in the process.

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates—
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;
Pound them up with a thumping pole;
And when you’ve finished if any are whole,
Send them down the hall to roll!

That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!
So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

Today, the Yule Lads are usually personified as a kind of bevy of affable Santa Clauses. Except, being Icelandic, they either leave gifts (if you’ve been nice) or rotting potatoes (if you’ve been naughty). That’s the sanitized version. You don’t have to dig too deeply to discover their true selves.

The Lads are thirteen in number. In Icelandic lore, they are annoying pranksters at best; at worst, they are homicidal trolls who devour children. Mostly they steal from and harass Icelandic farmers.

The Lads descend from the mountains, staggering their arrivals and departures, beginning thirteen nights before Christmas. Each has his own exasperating speciality.

There’s the peg-legged Stekkjarstaur (Sheep-Cote Clod), who harasses sheep. He arrives on December 12 and takes his leave on Christmas Day.

There’s Giljagaur (Gully Gawk), who lurks in gullies, biding his time to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk. He turns up on December 13 and returns to his lair on December 26.

There’s the diminutive Stúfur (Stubby), who steals pans in order to eat the crust out of them. He trots in on December 14 and totters off on December 27.

There’s Þvörusleikir (Spoon-Licker), who, well, licks spoons. He’s very gaunt, due to malnutrition. He shows up on December 15 and disappears, like Kafka’s hunger artist, into the straw on December 28.

There’s Pottaskeffil (Pot-Scraper), another one who steals leftovers from pots. He comes a-calling on December 16 and returns to the hills on December 29.

There’s Askasleikir (Bowl-Licker). Again, he licks bowls. I’d advise you to use extra soap, except once he licks the bowls, he usually steals them. He slips in on December 17 and slips out on December 30.

There’s Hurðaskellir (Door-Slammer), who slams doors in the night. He raises a ruckus from December 18 to December 31.

There’s Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler), a Yule Lad who’s crazy for skyr, a kind of Icelandic yogurt. He sates himself from December 19 to January 1.

There’s Bjúgnakrækir (Sausage-Snatcher), who’s crazy for the pig-products. He hides in the rafters and swipes smoked sausages. He makes his mark from December 20 to January 2.

There’s Gluggagægir (Window-Peeper), who peeps, creepily, through windows, looking for things to steal. He cases the joint from December 21 to January 3.

There’s Gáttaþefur (Doorway-Sniffer), who sniffs around the door jamb with his abnormally large proboscis, in search of laufabrauð, Icelandic Christmas bread. He hungers from December 22 to January 4.

There’s Ketkrókur (Meat-Hook), who uses a hook to steal meat. He steals from December 23 to January 5.

And finally, there’s Kertasníkir (Candle-Stealer), who pursues children so that he can eat their candles. (He likes tallow.) He’s a “light” eater from Christmas Eve, December 24, to Epiphany, January 6.

And you thought holiday visits from your relatives drove you batty!

Their mother is the ogress Grýla, who descends from the mountains in search of children to boil in her cauldron. If you happen to find yourself in her gnarled claws, remember, she has to release you if you repent.

The Yule Lads are frequently accompanied by the Yule Cat, which eats children who do not receive new clothes before Christmas. This is tied in to the Icelandic work ethic. In the old days, if farm hands processed their autumn wool in a timely fashion, they were rewarded with new clothes. If not, they received nothing, leaving them fair game for the Yule Cat. Better sheer them sheep!

To my knowledge, there has been no classical music written about the Yule Lads. As with Krampus, some enterprising composer could make a real killing. All you need is a Christmas hit, and you can kick back and collect those sweet holiday royalties.

Be that as it may, I’ll be doing what I can, playing the “Icelandic Folk Dances” by Jón Leifs, among my featured works, this afternoon between 4 and 6 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 12, 2018
Berlioz Passion Madness & Rediscovered Mass

Hector Berlioz was a man easily swept away by his passions.

When denied by the object of his affection, the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, he furiously scribbled his “Symphonie fantastique,” an opium-induced fever dream that imagines his own execution for murdering her. She then reappears during the course of a witches’ sabbath to mock his corpse. Perhaps counterintuitively, Smithson went for this in a big way, and the two were married, though, perhaps unsurprisingly, not at all happily.

Berlioz’s biography is full of crazy adventures . Whether in regard to his affairs of the heart, his musical education, or his notorious compositions, always he was driven by mercurial passions and excesses.

He lived large, and he dreamed big music. One need only think of his Requiem, with its massive choir, antiphonal brass ensembles, and 16 timpani. The composer even suggested the orchestration could be doubled or tripled, depending on the size of the space. (However, in an uncharacteristic show of restraint, he recommended the chorus be kept to only 400 singers, except for some of the larger numbers.)

Today is Berlioz’s birthday. It also happens to be the Christmas season, so naturally my thoughts gravitate to “L’enfance du Christ” – which, I must say, is not my favorite Berlioz work. Fortunately, he also composed a “Messe solennelle” in 1824, on virtually the same subject – the commemoration of the Feast of the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents by King Herod in his attempt to the snare the baby Jesus.

Berlioz was only 20 years-old at the time, but he was already driven by his creative demons. If you are a fan of the composer, you must hear this piece, which teems with presentiments of many of his major works, including the “Symphonie fantastique,” “The Damnation of Faust,” “Benvenuto Cellini” (with its “Roman Carnival Overture”), and of course the Requiem.

Berlioz himself played the tam-tam at the work’s premiere, and in his excitement gave it such a blow that it blew everyone back in their pews. The “Messe” was favorably received (unusual for this composer), but Berlioz decided he hated the piece and wound up burning the score.

The work was believed lost for nearly 170 years, until it was rediscovered by a Belgian schoolteacher in an organ gallery in Antwerp in 1991. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducted the first modern performance two years later, and directs the live recording we will hear this afternoon.

I’ll preface that with a knock-out recording of the “Symphony fantastique,” led by the Argentinean powder keg Carlos Païta.

First, today’s Noontime Concert will feature the Dolce Suono Ensemble. Artistic director and flutist Mimi Stillman will join David Osenberg for “Music in the Second Capital,” which explores the musical tastes of the Founding Fathers and Philadelphia musical culture in the last quarter of the 18th century. Featured composers will include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, Johann Christian Bach, Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi, and Francis Hopkinson. That begins at 12:00 EST.

I’ll be along following the concert, around 1:40. Our celebration of Berlioz begins at 2:00. The passionate seething will continue unabated until 4:00, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 11, 2018
Chelm’s Wise Fools Meet Bach on WWFM

In Jewish lore, the wise men of the Polish city of Chelm may be very wise indeed, but they sure do lack common sense. For example, when carrying logs down a mountain to build their dwellings, they encounter someone who suggests it might be easier simply to roll them down. They recognize this as a very good idea – so they carry the logs back up the mountain and proceed to roll them down.

This kind of playful irony informs the tales of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Aaron Zeitlin, and Sholem Aleichem. More to our purposes, the folkloric antics inspired composer Matthew H. Fields when he came to write his “Sages of Chelm.” The work falls into three movements: “Khutzpah,” “Tsores,” and “Simchas.” We’ll enjoy the piece on this last day of Hanukkah, beginning at 3:00 EST.

In the meantime, here’s a link to a round-up of favorite Chelm stories:

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-sages-of-chelm/

I’ll actually be in a little earlier than usual today, to host “Bach at One.” The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra will present the Cantata BWV 8 “Liebster Gott, wenn Werd ich sterben” (“Dearest God, when will I die?”), under the direction of Julian Wachner. Then we’ll get a taste of “Pipes at One,” with Kent Tritle on the organ of Trinity’s St. Paul’s Chapel. Featured composers will include Dietrich Buxtehude, Nicolas de Grigny, Louis Marchand, Jean Langlais, Felix Mendelssohn, and of course Bach. As the titles of the programs suggest, these concerts will be broadcast back-to-back (Bach-to-Bach?), beginning at 1:00 EST.

Then, following “Sages of Chelm,” it will be business as usual at 4:00 EST, as I offer a skillful juxtaposition of birthday anniversaries and commuter entertainment, with some intimations of Christmas folded into the mix.

The “ch” in “Chelm” is pronounced like the “ch” in “Bach.” It’s not just the cold weather that will have me clearing my throat during this musical marathon run, from 1 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

The People of Chelm and the Cat:

https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/oral-histories/excerpts/woh-ex-0002054/people-chelm-and-cat

December 10, 2018

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