Happy 40th anniversary, “Star Wars.” I do miss the giddy enjoyment of the original.
What would the film be like without John Williams’ immortal music? Watch here:
Then the way it should be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH6a1iYQ0GA
Finally, Williams’ overblown concert version, which really makes sure we don’t miss the William Walton allusion:
“We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.”
While those “Frenchies” may search heaven and hell for that damned, elusive Pimpernel, listeners to The Classical Network should have no difficulty locating the French today, as we salute conductor Paul Paray on his birthday. We’ll also have music by the esteemed French hornist (pun intended) Louis François Dauprat.
Join me for a French toast, aujourd’hui, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’.
Still, a great many brave soldiers laid down their lives in combat and numerous unfortunate civilians were collateral casualties. Join me this Thursday morning, in advance of Memorial Day, as we salute the musical dead of all countries.
We’ll hear music by composers who died too young: George Butterworth, André Caplet, Cecil Coles, Enrique Granados, Ivor Gurney, Frederick Septimus Kelly, Alberic Magnard, Rudi Stephan, and Anton Webern. We’ll also hear elegies for the fallen by Romeo Cascarino, Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann, Gustav Holst, Charles Ives, Maurice Ravel, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
The morning’s highlight will be John Fould’s “A World Requiem,” scored for a mass of soloists, choristers, and orchestral musicians to rival those of Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand.” Composed between 1919 and 1921, the piece was conceived by Foulds as a memorial to the dead of all nations in the wake of the First World War. It was given its first performance at Royal Albert Hall on Armistice Night, November 11, 1923. It then lay in neglect for 80 years, until it was resurrected by Leon Botstein, who conducted the work’s revival at Royal Albert Hall on November 11, 2007. We’ll hear his recording, which was issued two months later on the Chandos label.
I hope you’ll join me for pieces of war and prayers for peace, Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Sleep is short, but memory is long, on Classic Ross Amico.
PHOTO: Ralph Vaughan Williams in uniform. His protégé, George Butterworth, honored with the Military Cross for acts of valor on the Somme, was killed by a German sniper at the age of 31.
Time again to hit the Slope.
I hope you’ll join me for Tuesday’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network. when I’ll be introducing music from Concerts on the Slope, from Saint John’s Episcopal Church, located in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. On the program will be music by Princeton University Ph.D. candidates Andy Akiho and Caroline Shaw (recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music), John Cage, and the series’ composer-in-residence Ke-Chia Chen.
Concerts on the Slope’s next program, “The Flowering Viola,” will be presented this Sunday at 3 p.m. The concert will include music by Charles Martin Loeffler, Robert Sirota, Bohuslav Martinu, Rebecca Clarke, and Max Bruch.
Concerts on the Slope was founded in 2012 to present top-notch chamber music concerts, featuring rising young artists from New York City and around the world. You can find out more about the series at concertsontheslope.org.
Tune in today at 12:00 p.m. EDT to WWFM – The Classical Network or wwfm.org.
Yesterday would have been conductor Georg Tintner’s 100th birthday. Already at the age of 20, Tintner was one of Vienna’s rising stars. Following the Anschluss, however, he had to sue his employers in an attempt to retain his post at the Vienna Volksoper, then wound up fleeing for his life.
The bulk of his career played out outside the international limelight of the great capitals of Europe and the United States. He labored mostly in obscurity in New Zealand, Australia, and finally Canada. (His last post was as music director of Symphony Nova Scotia.) Then, suddenly, late in life, he recorded a Bruckner cycle that struck the critics like a thunderbolt. After 60 years, Tintner was an overnight success.
Stick around following today’s Noontime Concert (a program from Brooklyn’s Concerts on the Slope) to enjoy one of Tintner’s acclaimed Bruckner recordings. It will be among our featured works this afternoon, between 12 and 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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