Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Celebrating Purcell on The Classical Network

On this, the birthday of one of England’s great composers, expect to receive a parcel of Purcell from The Classical Network.

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) was the outstanding composer of Restoration England, some would say of all English history. No native composer came anywhere near his stature until the end of the 19th century and the emergence of figures like Sir Edward Elgar.

Purcell achieved much in his 36 years. He was at the forefront of the flowering of English music after the Restoration of the monarchy. He served at Westminster Abbey under three kings. Among his other duties, he was an organist. He died at the height of his career, in 1695. Tradition has it that he caught a chill when his wife locked him out in the cold, after one too many late nights lingering at the tavern with his theatrical associates. He now rests in Westminster, near his former instrument.

Purcell stands apart as the most original thinker among English composers of his era. His music is often playful and sometimes quirky. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies takes that quirkiness and runs with it. His “Fantasia upon a Ground and Two Pavans” incorporates a foxtrot and imitates the effect of a gramophone running down and having to be cranked up again, only to have the stylus get stuck in a groove.

Michael Nyman’s music for the Peter Greenaway film “The Draughtsman’s Contract” takes Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” and whips it up into a musical egg cream complete with 1950s-style rock and roll saxophones. Purcell is listed in the film’s credits as “musical consultant.”

Poul Ruders’ “Concerto in Pieces (Purcell Variations)” was composed in 1995 for the tercentenary of Purcell’s death and the 50th anniversary of Benjamin Britten’s “Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell” – better known as “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.” I can’t imagine we’ll be able to get through the entire afternoon without hearing Britten’s most frequently performed work. In fact, I’ll be bringing a recording narrated by none other than Sean Connery.

We’ll also hear a violin concerto by Swedish composer Tor Aulin, born on this date in 1866, and a string quartet by Sholom Secunda.

Secunda’s quartet is a very happy discovery of music by a composer known mostly for his work in the Yiddish theater. The piece incorporates traditional Jewish melodies that appear to have been selected somewhat arbitrarily. However, some of them do pertain to the High Holy Days. (Shana tova!) If you have a soft spot for the quartets of Dvořák or Borodin, I think you will really enjoy this.

It will be an afternoon peppered with Purcell, further spiced by a few tributes and tributaries, today from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 10, 2018
Shofar Sounds for Rosh Hashanah on The Lost Chord

Shana tova!

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” to coincide with the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, we celebrate the High Holidays with several works highlighting the shofar, a ram’s horn blown as a symbolic call to worship during the holiday season.

We’ll hear “Call of the Shofar,” for trombone quartet, by Matthew H. Fields (including a pre-performance demonstration by the composer); “Shofar Service,” for baritone, trumpets, shofar, and chorus, by Herman Berlinski (from the Milken Archive of Jewish Music Series, on the Naxos label); and “Tekeeyah,” for shofar, trombone, and orchestra, by Meira Warshauer Composer (on a Navona Records/PARMA Recordings release).

Get ready to party like it’s 5779. Horn in on the High Holidays with music for the shofar – “Have a Blast,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 9, 2018
Dvořák’s Toilet Humor A Birthday Ode

In honor of Antonin Dvořák’s 177th birthday, today’s post is about Dvořák and bathroom humor. If you find the idea unprepossessing, or if you happen to be eating, stop reading now.

Dvořák’s “Humoresques” are off-shoots of his time in America as director of the National Conservatory in New York, a position he held from 1892 to 1895. Here, Dvořák was like a kid in a musical candy shop. He enthusiastically embraced the songs and dances of African-Americans and Native Americans as untapped natural resources that could be pressed into building blocks for the foundation of a genuinely American sound.

He jotted many musical sketches into notebooks – and even onto his starched sleeve, as with the “Indian lament” that came to him on a visit to Minnehaha Falls – later to be incorporated into works like his “New World” Symphony, “American” String Quartet, and Sonatina for Violin and Piano.

The “Humoresques” were tossed off by the composer during a summer vacation back home in Prague in 1894. Many of the melodies for these seven trifles for piano were lifted from his American sketchbooks. One, easily the most famous of the collection of eight, was immortalized by a ditty that runs thus:

“Passengers will please refrain from flushing toilets while the train is standing in or passing through a station.”

The words were taken from a sign posted outside the toilet in a railroad car. How fortuitous that they would so perfectly fit Dvořák’s melody. How very droll.

What I find disturbing is the implication of the sign – that somehow flushing a toilet in a station would have a very undesirable result. Was this really a thing? According to what I glean from an internet search, it may yet be. So I guess walking along the railroad tracks can be dangerous for more reasons than I had previously thought. In my half century on this earth, I had never heard this before, so I guess it’s true, we are always learning something useful.

Dvořák would spend hours visiting the tracks and overlooking train yards, admiring the different locomotives and keeping notes of their schedules. Perhaps, as such a rail buff, the composer would have appreciated the association.

Happy birthday, Antonin Dvořák!

Feel free to sing along:

September 8, 2018
80s Sword Sandal Film Scores

“…To crush your enemies… to see them driven before you… and to hear the lamentations of their women!”

Leave it to me to wait until the heat wave dissipates to program music from movies featuring lots of men without shirts. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we venture very far from Turner Classic Movies territory with an hour of guilty pleasures, as we listen to music from sword and sandal flicks from the 1980s.

These include “The Beastmaster” (1982), a film that was once so pervasive on cable that comedian Dennis Miller branded HBO as “Hey, Beastmaster’s On!” and TBS was known in some circles as “The Beastmaster Station.” I still haven’t seen it, believe it or not, but I know it has something to do with swords, sandals, two ferrets, and Tanya Roberts.

The music by Lee Holdridge is given the royal treatment, in a performance conducted by Charles Gerhardt, of RCA’s legendary “Classic Film Scores” series, on an album produced by George Korngold (son of Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

To prove that I have no reason to lie to you about not having seen “The Beastmaster,” I enthusiastically own up to the fact that, as a 15 year-old, I totally lapped up “The Sword and the Sorcerer” (1982). And since I still love everything now that I did when I was 15, you can draw your own conclusions.

A pre-“Matt Houston” Lee Horsley stars as Talon, a mercenary-warrior of royal blood, who wields an improbable sword with three blades that can be projected by unexplained means like lethal rockets. There’s also a hideous wizard played by Richard Moll, who went on to play Bull on television’s “Night Court,” king of the B-movie villains Richard Lynch, and George Maharis.

This is the best example I can think of of a really trashy movie with a fantastic score. Revisiting the music for “The Sword and the Sorcerer” merely affirms what I’ve known for a long time – that 1982 was a kind of second Golden Age for film scores, when even the terrible movies had fabulous music. The first Golden Age, of course, was roughly 40 years earlier – though the movies were generally better.

English composer David Whitaker, a veteran of 1970s Hammer Films, relates in the album’s liner notes that he wrote and orchestrated 75 minutes of music at white heat. The result sounds like one of the great scores of three or four decades earlier. If you like Korngold, John Williams, or Vaughan Williams, for that matter, definitely check this one out.

“Clash of the Titans” (1981) had a much more distinguished pedigree. It was the last film of stop-motion special effects genius Ray Harryhausen before his retirement. Harryhausen was responsible in large part for such classic films as “Mighty Joe Young,” “It Came from Beneath the Sea,” “Earth Versus the Flying Saucers,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” and any number of Sinbad movies.

The supporting cast employed Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Claire Bloom as Hera, Maggie Smith as Thetis, and Ursula Andress as Aphrodite, alongside Burgess Meredith and Flora Robson in her final film appearance. It was also the film which introduced Harry Hamlin, as Perseus. Hamlin went on to success on television’s “L.A. Law.”

Laurence Rosenthal, who studied at the Eastman School and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, wrote the score. Rosenthal was responsible for the music for, among others, “A Raisin in the Sun,” “The Miracle Worker,” and “Becket.” This one actually does turn up on TCM from time to time.

While “The Clash of the Titans” was an end of an era of sorts, the success of “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) sparked a sword and sandal resurgence. Of course, most of the imitators it spawned were low-budget affairs that nobody ever saw. “Conan” proved a high water mark of its kind. It also made Arnold Schwarzenegger one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

It sports unquestionably the best-loved score of its composer, Basil Poledouris. The music is regarded in soundtrack collector’s circles as a classic. The original soundtrack was revived in a lavish 3-CD set on the Intrada label, featuring all the available music, with alternate takes.

If this hour serves to illustrate anything, it’s that the overall quality of a film (or lack thereof) need not hinder a composer. At least back then. If you decide to stick with it, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Release the Kraken! Then slip on your man-flops for an hour of ‘80s sword and sandal flicks, this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 7, 2018
Claudio Scimone Dies Founder of I Solisti Veneti

Conductor Claudio Scimone has died.

Scimone, a disciple of Dmitri Mitropoulos and Franco Ferrara, was the founder of I Solisti Veneti. He gave first modern performances of a number of operas by Vivaldi and Rossini, as well as Salieri’s “The Last Judgment.” He also made the first recordings of the symphonies of Muzio Clementi. In all, Scimone made over 150 records.

He was awarded the title of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the Republic’s highest honor. He also held an honorary law degree from the University of Padua. At the time of his death, he was honorary conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon.

Scimone was 83 years-old.

Clementi’s Symphony No. 1

Vivaldi’s “Orlando Furioso,” with Marilyn Horne and Victoria de los Angeles:

September 6, 2018

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