Happy birthday, Vittorio Giannini!

Giannini was born in Philadelphia in 1903. He studied at the Milan Conservatory, after which he earned his graduate degree from Juilliard. He then taught at Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute.

Arguably his most important contribution as an educator was the foundation in 1965 of the North Carolina School of the Arts, which he envisioned as a Juilliard of the South. The school attracted to its faculty such luminaries as Ruggiero Ricci and Janos Starker. Giannini died the year after it opened, in 1966.

He was from a family of opera singers. His father founded the Verdi Opera House in Philadelphia. One sister taught voice at the Curtis Institute of Music and the other sang at the Metropolitan Opera. Giannini himself composed 14 operas, including “Lucedia,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and one for radio, “Beauty and the Beast.” Two, “Casanova” and “Christus,” remain unperformed.

Not surprisingly, then, in his day he was known largely for his vocal music, but his Symphony No. 3 for wind band has fared best on disc. There are seven recordings in the current catalogue, from the classic release directed by A. Clyde Roller on the Mercury label to one of the later-in-life, digital recordings of Frederick Fennell.

Daniel Spalding, enterprising music director of the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic, recorded the Symphony No. 4 with the Bournemouth Symphony, for Naxos. We’ll hear that recording in the 4:00 hour.

Spalding will conduct the Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey this Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Trenton War Memorial. The program will include Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World,” and Peter Boyer’s “Ellis Island: The Dream of America,” a stirring work for actors and orchestra, on texts of actual émigrés who came to the United States in search of a better life. You can read all about it in my article in the Friday edition of the Trenton Times. Or you can get a sneak preview here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/10/classical_music_njcp_performin_2.html

Later on this afternoon, we’ll have music by Norwegian composers Edvard Grieg (performed by Emil Gilels on the 100th anniversary of his birth) and Geirr Tveitt. Listen in from 4 to 7 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network, and at wwfm.org.