Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

  • Wild Movie Soundtracks Picture Perfect

    Wild Movie Soundtracks Picture Perfect

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” as we put our faith in the groundhog and brace ourselves for six more weeks of winter, we defer to the natural wisdom of the wild kingdom.

    We’ll hear selections from John Barry’s music for “Born Free” (1966), based on Joy Adamson’s memoir about the raising of Elsa, an orphaned lion cub who grows to adulthood and is eventually released into the Kenyan wilderness. The music proved a double Academy Award winner for Barry, who was recognized for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

    Jerome Moross, best known for his music to “The Big Country,” had such a strong personality that his immediately recognizable sound extended even to his work on the National Geographic special, “Grizzly!” (1967), a documentary about a pair of ecologists studying North American bears. “Grizzly!” sports an energetic Americana score that is cut very much from the same cloth.

    The Korda Brothers’ adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” (1942) stars the charismatic Indian actor Sabu, as Mowgli, raised by wolves, who yearns to reconnect with his human roots. (For the record, Kipling pronounced “Mowgli” so that the first syllable rhymes with “cow.”) Miklós Rózsa wrote the enchanting score.

    And we can’t get through the hour without hearing Henry Mancini’s “Baby Elephant Walk,” from “Hatari!” (1962). So many exclamation points in these wilderness titles! The film was directed by Howard Hawks and starred John Wayne. In case you’re wondering, “Hatari!” is Swahili for “Danger!”

    No danger in treating yourself to this cinematic carnival of the animals. We’re going wild this week on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Composer Deaths A WPRB Farewell

    Composer Deaths A WPRB Farewell

    Jean-Baptiste Lully, also an accomplished dancer, injured his toe while pounding the floor with a heavy stick to mark time; the resultant infection killed him. Anton Webern violated curfew when he snuck out on his porch for a smoke and was shot by an American soldier. Ernest Chausson lost control of his bicycle and fatally slammed into a brick wall. Henry Purcell developed pneumonia after his wife locked him out of the house for coming home late after one too many pub crawls. Charles-Valentin Alkan reached for a copy of the Talmud, located on a high shelf, when the bookcase toppled, crushing him. Edward MacDowell, César Franck, and Maurice Ravel were all hit by cabs. Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was caught in an avalanche. Alexander Scriabin died of a septic carbuncle. Jean-Marie Leclair was found murdered in his room. Alessandro Stradella was set upon by unidentified assassins for being too much of a ladies’ man.

    Face it – there is no good way to go, and it all ends badly.

    This Thursday morning on WPRB, we bid farewell to “Classic Ross Amico” with a full playlist of music by composers who died horribly, either in accidents, through assassinations, from bizarre illnesses, or in otherwise outlandish fashion.

    That said, the plan is not for me to leave WPRB entirely. It’s possible I’ll be taking over Sunday mornings, beginning on February 11, to kickstart an opera show or to inaugurate a program devoted to light music. If either one of these appeal, or if you have any other ideas, feel free to comment below.

    In the meantime, we’ll pay our last respects, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It finally has come down to music by “dead white males,” on Classic Ross Amico.

  • Classic Ross Amico’s Deadly Finale on WPRB

    Classic Ross Amico’s Deadly Finale on WPRB

    This Thursday morning on WPRB will be the series finale of “Classic Ross Amico.” And if I have to go, I’m taking everyone with me. We’ll have a full playlist of music by composers who died horribly, either in accidents, through assassinations, from bizarre illnesses, or in otherwise spectacular fashion.

    Take heart! I won’t be leaving WPRB entirely. Listen for me on Sunday mornings, beginning on February 11, for something entirely fresh. Whether it will be an opera show or a program devoted to light music is still up in the air, so feel free to state your preference by leaving a comment below.

    In the meantime, I hope you’ll join me for the bitter end, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’ll shudder at spectacular deaths of the (de)composers, on Classic Ross Amico.

  • Accordion Concert Preview on The Classical Network

    Accordion Concert Preview on The Classical Network

    If the accordion is your thing – or even if you think it’s not – I hope you’ll join me this Wednesday afternoon on The Classical Network for a visit from Robert Young McMahan.

    McMahan, who is on the faculty of The College of New Jersey, is one of the foremost authorities on the instrument. He’ll drop by to talk about an upcoming concert that will take place this Saturday at Mayo Concert Hall in the TCNJ Music Building titled “Bellows and Bows: A Potpourri of Chamber Works for Violin, Cello, and Accordion.” The 8:00 program will include works by Lukas Foss, Johan Halvorsen, George Kleinsinger, Edward McQuire, Alberto Acosta Ortega, Mátyás Seiber, Jaroslav Vanĕc̆e, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and McMahan himself.

    We’ll also get a taste of the accordion’s striking sonorities when applied to the classical repertoire. Join us for music and a brief conversation this afternoon at 4:00. It will certainly lend variety to a projected Schubert birthday celebration, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Schubert’s Light & Shadow From Marlboro

    Schubert’s Light & Shadow From Marlboro

    When we think of the music of Schubert’s final year, what comes across most strikingly, perhaps, is the complexity of feeling. Sensitively modulated light and shadow – the unpredictable contrasts of major and minor, agitation and calm, ecstasy and depression – create a sensation not unlike that experienced when wisps of cloud sweep across the sun on a mild autumn day. We find it in the late piano sonatas; we find it in the transcendent String Quintet in C major. It’s a beauty so intense that it actually kind of hurts.

    Every rule has its exception, of course, and on this week’s “Music from Marlboro,” we catch Schubert in a comparatively light-hearted mood – which I think appropriate on the occasion of his birthday – with his Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D. 898. While the trio does venture into remote keys and has its share of turbulence, the overarching spirit is very, very far from the eerie resignation of “The Hurdy-Gurdy Man.” In fact, it’s a pretty happy piece. We’ll hear it performed at the 2008 Marlboro Music Festival by pianist Jonathan Biss, violinist David Bowlin, and cellist Marcy Rosen.

    Then we’ll round out the hour with what might possibly have been the final music Schubert ever wrote. “The Shepherd on the Rock,” D. 965, on a text by Wilhelm Müller and Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, was composed barely a month before the composer’s death at the age of 31. The multi-sectional “lied” traverses a wide range of moods, as a shepherd listens to echoes from the valley below, grapples with his feeling of loneliness, and finds hope in the prospect of Spring and rebirth.

    Marlboro veterans, soprano Benita Valente, clarinetist Harold Wright, and pianist Rudolf Serkin, set down a classic – indeed legendary – recording of the work in 1960. This live performance was captured at Marlboro nine years later. In the words of Rudolf Serkin, “An artistic achievement cannot and should not be repeated. Isn’t it a miracle that a performance never is the same?”

    Get ready to share his wonder. It’s an all-Schubert hour, on this week’s “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

Tag Cloud

Aaron Copland (94) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (153) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (107) John Williams (198) KWAX (233) Leonard Bernstein (105) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (168) Mozart (92) Opera (222) Philadelphia Orchestra (91) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (110) Radio (90) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (269) Vaughan Williams (107) WPRB (397) WWFM (881)

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Receive a weekly digest every Sunday at noon by signing up here

RECENT POSTS