Congratulations to Diane Wittry, music director of the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, who can now add the Garden State Philharmonic to her resume. The Garden State Philharmonic has been serving New Jersey for 62 years. Among Wittry’s other posts is that of artistic director of the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra. Wittry is the Philharmonic’s seventh music director and its first female conductor.
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Cello Baroque on The Classical Network
Hello, cello!
Today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network will be a Baroque recital for solo cello, presented by Loretta O’Sullivan.
On the program will be music by Johann Sebastian Bach – his Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009 – and a Passacaglia by Heinrich Biber. These are the bricks of an edifice held together by grout in the form of four caprices by Giuseppe Maria Dall’Abaco, according to Sullivan, “…each with its own color, texture and mood.”
The program was presented on November 20, 2017 at St. Bartholomew’s Church, 50th Street and Park Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan, where free lunchtime concerts are held every Thursday at 1:15 p.m. The 2017-2018 schedule has run its course, but concerts will resume in the fall.
Today’s broadcast is made possible in part by Gotham Early Music Scene, or GEMS. GEMS is a non-profit corporation that supports and promotes artists and organizations in New York City devoted to early music – music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical periods. For more information and updates to GEMS’ events calendar, look online at gemsny.org.
Then stick around as we celebrate the birthdays of musicologist and composer Sir Donald Francis Tovey, composers Wojciech Kilar and Peter Schickele – with an appearance by Schickele’s alter ego, P.D.Q. Bach – and sopranos Eleanor Steber and Dawn Upshaw.
I’ll provide the music; you provide the ice cream cake, this afternoon from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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Bella Davidovich at 90 & Zukerman at 70
Pinchas Zukerman is 70 today. Tell that to Bella Davidovich. The formidable pianist has just turned 90.
Davidovich first attained international recognition through a shared first prize at the 1949 Warsaw Chopin Competition. This was the launch of a successful career that took her all over the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She played with every major Soviet conductor. She was soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic for 28 consecutive seasons.
In 1978, she emigrated from the USSR to the United States, where she became a naturalized American citizen. Prior to the move, she taught at the Moscow Conservatory for sixteen years. She has taught at the Juilliard School since 1982. Her son (with the late violinist Julian Sitkovetsky) is Dmitry Sitkovetsky.
I don’t think a month goes by without someone at the station playing one of her superlative Chopin recordings. We’ll sample her artistry – though not to the neglect of Zukerman – today between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Davidovich plays Chopin’s Grande valse brillante:
And the Scherzo No. 2:
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Kipling’s Muse Koechlin & Martinu
Many composers have been inspired by the writings of Rudyard Kipling, but few more so than Charles Koechlin.
Koechlin is probably better recognized these days as the orchestrator who assisted Fauré and Debussy than for any of his own music. He was fascinated by the movies and wrote works inspired by a number of cinematic celebrities. This yielded, among other things, his “Seven Stars Symphony,” with movements dedicated to Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and others. The figure he most adored is the now largely-forgotten actress Lillian Harvey, who he admired from afar and honored with a number of compositions.
In addition, Koechlin was an amateur astronomer and an accomplished photographer. He became quite the athlete, in order to keep up his strength after a youthful brush with tuberculosis. As I know I’ve pointed out before, he also had one of the most enviable beards in all of classical music.
Like Percy Grainger, Koechlin harbored a lifelong affection for Kipling’s “The Jungle Book,” and returned to the subject often throughout his career – beginning with some song settings in 1899 and running through the symphonic poem “The Bandar-Log,” completed in 1940.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear his symphonic poem, “The Law of the Jungle.” Then we’ll turn to the ballet, “The Butterfly that Stamped,” by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu.
Like Koechlin, Martinu was prolific by anyone’s standards. And like Koechlin there is so much Martinu nobody has ever heard. In addition to six symphonies, which at least get some play, he wrote concertos of every stripe, as well as 15 operas, a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works, and – believe it or not – 14 ballets.
“The Butterfly that Stamped” was inspired by a tale from Kipling’s “Just So Stories.”
Get ready to go wild! It’s a Kipling double-bill. Join me for “Kipling Coupling” – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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Bergman’s Magic Flute A Centennial Celebration
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ingmar Bergman. Bergman, not exactly known for his lightness of spirit, filmed one of the most consistently delightful adaptations of any opera (or singspiel, for that matter) in a Swedish television version of “The Magic Flute” (1975). The production’s Papageno, Håkan Hagegård, went on to enjoy an international career.
“The Magic Flute” also figures in the puppet play featured in “Hour of the Wolf” (1968).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw-8bwXFeZE
Many of Bergman’s films reflect their director’s love of classical music. Any favorites?
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