Spring has sprung! Join me this afternoon, as we celebrate the hard-won arrival of this season of renewal with music of vernal inspiration. I’ll be sowing the fields from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
Speaking of renewal, have you made your commitment to support The Classical Network yet? Tomorrow is the culmination of our Bach 500. Help us curtail fundraising and to enjoy as much of Bach’s music as possible on his birthday, March 21, by making a donation now at wwfm.org or 1-888-232-1212. Thanks!
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” with the lingering evidence of our last winter storm still coating lawns and piled high around parking lots in the Trenton-Princeton area, we welcome spring with selections from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden.”
Based on an allegorical Russian fairy tale of humans, quasi-mythological creatures, and the eternal forces of nature, “The Snow Maiden” is the story of a star-crossed love that brings about the end of a 15-year winter. The orchestral suite – which climaxes with the “Dance of the Tumblers” – is fairly popular, but the opera, as with all of Rimsky’s 16 efforts in the form, is virtually unknown in the West.
The recording, on the Capriccio label, which features the Bulgarian Radio Symphony conducted by Stoyan Angelov, doesn’t hold a candle to the best Rimsky opera recordings by conductors like Nikolai Golovanov, but it’s enough to give a taste of what American opera lovers are missing.
I hope you’ll join me for “Thaw of the Wild,” tonight at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
It was on this date 90 years ago that the Sergei Rachmaninoff gave the debut of his Piano Concerto No. 4, from the keyboard, with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It had been 18 years since his previous concerto (which he had unveiled in New York). In the meantime, he had weathered the Russian Revolution and the personal, perpetual obligation of earning a living as a concert pianist.
The original version of the Fourth Concerto was much longer than the one heard at the 1927 premiere. Even so, the work failed to engage either critics or audience. The composer, ever sensitive to criticism (the failure of his Symphony No. 1 plunged him into a depression so profound that it could only be alleviated through hypnotherapy, from which he emerged to write his Piano Concerto No. 2, ecstatically received), prepared a final, authoritative version of the Concerto No. 4 for performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra, this time under Eugene Ormandy, in 1941. The work has never caught the imagination of concert-goers to anywhere near the same extent as the Concertos Nos. 2 & 3.
The original version was released by the Rachmaninoff Estate only in the year 2000. It has since been recorded in this form several times. It’s a very interesting piece. One wonders if the work would have fared better had Rachmaninoff simply stuck to his guns?
The original version of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4:
PLEASE NOTE: Eric Lu will perform Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with the Bravura Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Chiu-Tze Lin, at Rutgers University’s Nicholas Music Center in New Brunswick, tonight at 7:30 p.m.
“He’s a nice, quiet, peace-loving man come home to Ireland to forget his troubles.”
John Wayne gives Victor McLaglen a lathering in the epic climax of John Ford’s “The Quiet Man,” and composer Victor Young’s palette is all green. Join me for this alternately romantic and boisterous, folk-inflected score, alongside music for Ford’s “The Informer,” a very different film, a black-and-white study of guilt and paranoia, that earned Ford, McLaglen, and composer Max Steiner Academy Awards. (Ford was honored with his fourth Academy Award for “The Quiet Man.”)
We’ll also feature two films with music by John Williams: an adaptation of Frank McCourt’s autobiographical book, “Angela’s Ashes,” and Ron Howard’s big screen historical fiction, inspired by his ancestors’ journey to America, “Far and Away.” The latter soundtrack features the talents of The Chieftains.
We land a few for St. Patrick’s Day this week on “Picture Perfect,” this Friday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.
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