With the news that 149 lost works of Antonio Salieri have come to light, now seems like a good time to remind you about this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Mozart and His World” (to be held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, August 7-16).
Is there Salieri on the program? Why, yes, yes there is. It falls under the category of “His World.” You see, even when the focus of the festival is on a well-known composer – and what composer is better-known than Mozart? – the planning committee goes into overdrive, racking their brains and spackling in around the edges with composers and works your average person-on-the-street may not have ever heard of, and certainly have never heard.
My preference, of course, is for the years Bard tackles figures such as Bohuslav Martinu or Carlos Chávez or Ralph Vaughan Williams or Erich Wolfgang Korngold; but under the Mozart umbrella, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Josef Mysliveček, Paul Wranitzky, Emanuel Schickaneder, Giovanni Paisiello, Muzio Clementi, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, Franz Xaver Mozart (Mozart’s composer son), and composer sons of the great Johann Sebastian Bach will have their moments to shine. Some of the works will be quite substantial, such as Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor.
And these are only the composers you might have heard of, through reading about Mozart in histories or program notes. How often, if ever, have you actually heard their music?
I don’t care about your level of expertise, or how jaded you may be, between the unusual repertoire, the imaginative juxtaposition of pieces, the pre-concert talks, and the Saturday morning panels with scholars and historians, you will ALWAYS learn something. Even if I personally may bristle at the idea of a Mozart festival – nothing wrong with it, it just doesn’t excite me – once you get me in the hall, I know it’s going to be fabulous.
The Bard Music Festival is part of the college’s larger celebration of the arts, Bard SummerScape (June 25-August 16), which encompasses opera, theater, dance, and cabaret at the campus’ Spiegeltent. If Mozart really doesn’t float your boat, there will be a fully-staged production of Richard Strauss’ opera “Die ägyptische Helena” (“The Egyptian Helen,” July 24-August 2). When’s the last time you heard that?
The Mozart festival will conclude with a semi-staged performance of “The Abduction from the Seraglio.”
Hang in there: 2027 will bring “Gershwin and His World.” That’s a subject that can shoot out tendrils in so many different, fascinating directions.
For tickets and information about Bard SummerScape, the Bard Music Festival, and “Mozart and His World,” visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/.
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A blurb about the rediscovered Salieri works (which include canons, duets, and trios, in the composer’s hand), with a link to the original German source:
https://slippedisc.com/2026/06/found-149-autograph-works-by-salieri/
A selection from Salieri’s “Prima la musica e poi le parole” (“First the music and then the words”), first performed on the same occasion that introduced Mozart’s “Schauspieldirektor” (“The Impresario”), and his collaboration with Mozart, the cantata “Per la ricuperate salute di Ofelia” (“For the recovered health of Ophelia”), rediscovered in 2015, will be included on a Bard Music Festival concert on August 9.
@fishercenterbard
Category: Daily Dispatch
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Mozart and His World (Including Salieri) at the Bard Music Festival
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June Is Bustin’ Out at the Princeton Festival
It’s June, and the performance pavilion is up at Morven Museum & Garden! Who’s ready to hear some music? Opera, cabaret, Baroque, dance, Great Ladies of Jazz, Time for Three, the Bacon Brothers, Queen Nation, and a pops concert in celebration of America’s 250th birthday – the Princeton Festival will begin on Friday and run through June 21.
Main stage events will be held on the grounds of Morven, at 55 Stockton Street (Route 206), with Baroque concerts held across the way, at Princeton’s Trinity Church (33 Mercer Street).
On opening night, Broadway superstar Sierra Boggess (“The Little Mermaid,” “The Phantom of the Opera”) will perform cabaret-style, with piano, sharing showtunes, songs, and personal anecdotes (Morven, Friday at 7 p.m.).
Then will be a big treat for opera lovers, as world-renowned soprano and Metropolitan Opera star Sondra Radvanovsky will headline a program of moving arias, duets, and orchestral interludes from the Italian repertoire, including works by Puccini, Verdi, Mascagni, and Giordano. For the duets, she’ll be joined by Festival veteran Victor Starsky, who will also perform the showstopper “Nessun Dorma.” The Princeton Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Rossen Milanov (Morven, Saturday at 8 p.m.).
Sunday will be the Festival’s Community Day, which will include free morning Yoga in the Garden (9 a.m.) and, in the afternoon, family friendly activities, such as an Instrument Petting Zoo, a Musical Story Time, a Quilting Exhibition “Harriet Powers: American Icon,” with the Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild, and American Repertory Ballet‘s 30-minute “Swan Lake Experience,” an accelerated story of the ballet with audience participation (12-3 p.m.).
In the evening, Milanov and the PSO will return in support of the dancers for a program including celebrated pas de deux from Tchaikovsky masterworks (including “Swan Lake”), a ballet set to a neglected gem by Jean Françaix – his Piano Concerto, with Steven Beck the soloist – and a world premiere choreographed to music by Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw (Morven, Sunday at 7 p.m.).
Two Baroque concerts will be offered on weeknights at Trinity Church, with The Sebastians performing a program of Bach cantatas, BWV 140 “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (“Sleepers Awake”) and BWV 80 “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”), alongside the Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor (Trinity, next Tuesday at 7 p.m.).
Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” will highlight a program performed by the ensemble Twelfth Night that will also include works by Pietro Locatelli, Arcangelo Corelli, and Francesco Durante (Trinity, next Thursday at 7 p.m.).
This year’s fully-staged opera will be Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” Soprano Toni Marie Palmertree, who really threw herself into the role (and off Castel Sant’Angelo’s parapet) last year as Tosca – and who recently sang “Butterfly” at the Met – will sing Cio-Cio-San. Victor Starsky, who gave an impassioned performance as Tosca’s lover, Cavarodossi (and, again, will sing with Radvanovksy this Saturday) – will return as Pinkerton. Once again, Milanov will conduct the PSO. The opera will be heard in two performances (Morven, Friday, June 12, at 7 p.m.., and Sunday, June 14, at 4 p.m.).
Impassioned music-making of another sort will rock the pavilion – and you – as musicians of Queen Nation, billed as the undisputed #1 Queen Tribute Band in the United States, declare themselves the champions in iconic Queen ‘70s and ‘80s-era costumes (Morven, Saturday, June 13, at 7 p.m.).
Grammy and Emmy Award-winning ensemble – and Festival favorites – Time for Three will return with another genre-defying program. The trio of Ranaan Meyer (double bass, vocals), Nicolas “Nick” Kendall (violin, vocals) and Charles Yang (violin, vocals) merge classical, Americana, and singer-songwriter traditions into a singular, remarkable sound. As always, in the spirit of spontaneity, as always, the group will announce its selections from the stage (Morven, Thursday, June 18, at 7 p.m.).
The concluding weekend will be a three-day showcase of American music, in celebration of America’s Semiquincentennial, with additional family events on Sunday. The weekend will be presented in partnership with the Municipality of Princeton.
Great Ladies of Jazz will be a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, and Ginger Rogers, among others, starring Capathia Jenkins and Aisha de Haas. Lucas Waldin will conduct the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (Morven, Friday, June 19, at 7 p.m.).
A pre-concert talk, “Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement,” will be delivered by Princeton University voice teacher Dr. Rochelle Ellis. Treats will be available to sample from Tipple & Rose, and Morven’s Museum will be open with free admission from 5-7pm in recognition of Juneteenth.
The Bacon Brothers, Emmy-winner composer Michael and A-list actor Kevin (of “Footloose” and “Apollo 13” fame), will play a mix of folk, rock, soul, and country music. Olsson’s Fine Foods will be onsite with Happy Hour Boxes filled with gourmet cheeses and sandwiches. (Morven, Saturday, June 20, at 7 p.m.).
Finally, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra will offer a star-spangled salute with “American Fanfare,” featuring Broadway vocalist Julie Benko (“Funny Girl”). The patriotic program will include works by Aaron Copland, Valerie Coleman, Virgil Thomson, Richard Rodgers, Harold Arlen, and John Philip Sousa. America 250 flags and red, white, and blue pom-poms will be given out to the first 150 to enter the grounds (Morven, Sunday, June 21 at 3 p.m.).
Prior to the concert, free family fun for children of all ages will be available, beginning at 1:00.
Picnic boxes from Jammin’ Crepes may be pre-ordered up to 48 hours before each mainstage Festival performance, except the June 6 Sondra Radvanovsky concert.
Tickets and information are available by phone at (609) 497-0020 and online at princetonsymphony.org/festival. -
Inappropriate Laughter Before an Open Microphone
Here’s a little piece of frivolity I was reminded of this morning when responding to a comment by Joel Wagoner about the Polish composer Mieczysław Karłowicz, some of whose music I featured yesterday on “The Lost Chord.”
Joel, a longtime listener to my radio programs on several stations over the better part of three decades, reminded me that I had introduced him to Karłowicz’s music. He also recalled that the composer’s death, in an avalanche, was memorialized in a symphonic poem (“Kościelec”) by Wojiech Kilar.
This brought to mind an incident that took place, on the air, before an open microphone, in defiance of this most somber of biographical details.
I was introducing some of Karłowicz’s music and talking about the composer’s gloomy disposition and pessimistic nature; then, for whatever reason, I got to the part about the avalanche and I started laughing. The poetic justice of the manner of his demise just struck me as hilarious. I tried to fight it, but you know how it is – it’s like laughing in church or at a funeral or during a serious moment in a play – the more inappropriate it seemed, the harder it was to suppress it.
When you’re at the control board, you’re always supposed to pot down for a cough or a sneeze or to clear your throat – at least, you do if you’re a professional – but what do you do when you can’t stop laughing? I suppose there are worse things. If anyone was offended, I never heard about it.
It’s not the only time this happened to me on the air. Another time, I remember, someone called me up to ask, “Ross, what’s so funny?” I don’t remember now, but I’m sure it was something else inappropriate that popped into my head, and I couldn’t tell her.
This doesn’t bode well for my impending years in the old age home, when, in my senility, all my inhibitions fall away, and everything out my mouth is raw id. -
“Poland Spring” on “The Lost Chord”
Poland is in bloom! This Saturday on “The Lost Chord,” find refreshment in musical discoveries by four Polish composers.
We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Alexandre Tansman. Tansman spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.
Hyper-romantic Mieczyslaw Karlowicz lived his life at such a heightened emotional pitch that he was perhaps fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.
On a lighter note, we’ll enjoy choral music by Andrzej Koszewski – his “Kaszuby Suite,” steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland – and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojciech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”
It’s a flowering of Polish music on “Poland Spring,” 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 See less -
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” I’ve assembled a playlist of avian music for the month of May.
Yes, yes, I’ve programmed Ottorino Respighi’s “The Birds,” his evergreen suite for small orchestra based on musical bird portraits of the 17th and 18th centuries, and Handel’s Organ Concerto in F major, “The Cuckoo and the Nightingale.”
But I’ve also included a lesser-heard selection by Hubert Parry, from his incidental music for Aristophanes’ “The Birds,” a bridal march revived for the weddings of both Princess Elizabeth (soon to be Elizabeth II) and Prince William; a piece of light music kitsch juxtaposing bird song and chanting monks by Albert Ketèlbey; and a galop by Danish composer Hans Christian Lumbye, the Johann Strauss of the North, celebrating the exotic birds of the Tivoli Volière.
Finally, it’s very much my pleasure to have dusted off some vintage recordings of Elisabeth Schumann (whose hobby it was to engage in bird-whistling) and John McCormack, who will sing works by Carl Zeller and Eric Coates, respectively.
Better start lining the cage with newspaper. It’s “For the Birds” this week on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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