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We’re honoring Pope Francis, albeit vicariously, by way of his sainted namesake. Up next, it’s Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” a work for Early Music ensemble and narrator. Later on this morning, Paul Hindemith’s St. Francis of Assisi ballet “Nobilissima Visione” and Pulitzer Prize-winner Leo Sowerby’s “Canticle of the Sun.”
Stroke the docile menagerie until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com.
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Some regard a “blood moon” eclipse as a portent of the End of Days. Others blanch at the cataclysmic implications of swapped air shifts.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/doomsday-predicted-as-blood-moon-coincides-with-sukkot/
Chances are you will either be in synagogue this morning, or you’ll wish you were, when flighty bird Classic Ross Amico sits in for the always reliable Marvin Rosen at WPRB. Ah well, we might as well make the best of it.
We’ll be jumping on the media bandwagon this week to salute Pope Francis and maybe grumble a little bit about the situation in Philadelphia, where the Pope Fence is going up and tow trucks are impounding cars all across Center City.
We’ll honor the Pope (it’s not his fault) with music inspired by his namesake, St. Francis. Francis brought forth musical tributes from many composers across the centuries. We’ll hear from Kenneth Fuchs, Paul Hindemith, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Joaquin Rodrigo, Sir William Walton, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Leo Sowerby.
Also, because of Francis’ well-known affinity with and for the critters, we’ll leaven the proceedings with works evocative of the animal kingdom, pieces like Samuel Barber’s “The Monk and His Cat,” Jennifer Higdon’s “An Exaltation of Larks,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and of course Gioachino Rossini’s “Cat Duet.”
Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, will drop by at around 9:00 to tell us a little bit about the PSO’s upcoming season, which will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, when violinist Jennifer Koh will perform Anna Clyne’s “The Seamstress” (after a poem of William Butler Yeats) and Rossen Milanov will conduct Sergei Rachmaninoff’s wonderfully wistful Symphony No. 2.
Due to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries will be heard on THURSDAY this week, from 5:30 to 11 a.m. ET. Despair not! This is only a temporary circumstance. Marvin will return to his regular Wednesday slot next week, and I’ll be back on Thursdays.
For the time being, I hope you’ll join me for St. Francis and friends, this morning from 6 to 11, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. The fur will fly this week, on Classic Ross Amico.
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If you’ve got Francis Fever, but you’re too pooped to Pope, you can avoid the excitement of impassible bridges and car impoundments simply by staying home and turning on the radio. I can’t promise it will be like a vicarious thumbs up from the Pontiff, but you’ll hear plenty of music inspired by his namesake, St. Francis, and the animals he respected and loved.
The historical Francis was the son of a prosperous silk merchant, who renounced his worldly life and took a vow of poverty, inspiring others to follow him and in the process creating three religious orders. Two years after his death in 1226, he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is patron saint of animals and the environment, and one of the two patron saints of Italy (the other being Catherine of Siena). You’ll notice pets and their owners lined up around Catholic and Anglican churches on October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis. FUN FACT: St. Francis is alleged to have been the inventor of the Christmas crèche, or the Nativity scene.
We’ll have musical salutes to Francis by Kenneth Fuchs, Paul Hindemith, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Joaquin Rodrigo, Leo Sowerby, and Sir William Walton, interspersed with musical evocations of four-legged, winged and scaled friends, such as Samuel Barber’s “The Monk and His Cat,” Jennifer Higdon’s “An Exaltation of Larks,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and of course Gioachino Rossini’s “Cat Duet.”
As if all that weren’t enough, we’ll be graced by the presence of Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, who will drop by at around 9:00 to tell us a little bit about the PSO’s upcoming season, which will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, when violinist Jennifer Koh performs Anna Clyne’s “The Seamstress” (after a poem of William Butler Yeats) and Rossen Milanov conducts Sergei Rachmaninoff’s wonderfully wistful Symphony No. 2.
Do keep in mind that we will be heard at a special time this week. Due to Yom Kippur, Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries will air on THURSDAY morning from 5:30 to 11 ET; Classic Ross Amico will appear in Marvin’s usual slot, WEDNESDAY morning, though in my case it will be from 6 to 11. That extra half hour’s sleep makes all the difference!
I hope you’ll join us on WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com. We’re pulling the old switcheroo this week, on Classic Ross Amico.
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As Pope Mania grips the East Coast and anxiety levels skyrocket among Philadelphians who are bracing for a long weekend essentially kept under house arrest, I thought I’d add kerosene to the holy water by filling the airwaves with music in honor of Pope Francis.
How to do a salute to Pope Francis on Yom Kippur and not come across as insensitive? That’s the dilemma I faced when Marvin Rosen asked if I would switch with him for the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
So as not to be reviled as classical radio’s equivalent of Torquemada, I am reshelving some of the masses I had been considering. Instead I have struck upon the happy idea to play works inspired by St. Francis – the Pope’s namesake – and interleaving them with music inspired by animals. St. Francis, after all, had a marvelous affinity for our four-legged friends. And who doesn’t love animals?
I hope you’ll join me, if you’re able, on WEDNESDAY this week, to enjoy Francis-oriented works by Hindemith, Liszt, Poulenc, Rodrigo, Walton, Leo Sowerby and Kenneth Fuchs, and plenty of music for the critters. I’ll be handing out the treats from 6 to 11 a.m. ET, on Classic Ross Amico.
Then come back on THURSDAY morning for Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries. Sleep isn’t so important to Marvin, so he’ll be there, as always, from 5:30 to 11, keeping company with the roosters, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com.
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The greatest pieces of music are universes in themselves. Just when you think you know everything about a given work or its composer, along comes a fresh interpretation, or you listen to a cherished recording in a different frame of mind, and you’ll notice details you never heard before. Even so, it is sometimes tempting to crave more.
A composer dies. Over the years, we absorb his canon. We think, wistfully, why couldn’t he have composed eight symphonies, as opposed to seven (Sibelius)? Or ten, as opposed to nine (Mahler and Beethoven)? Sibelius, Mahler and Beethoven all left behind tantalizing sketches of unrealized projects.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have a remarkably vivid piece of wishful thinking.
Sir Edward Elgar produced no major works following the death of his wife in 1920. It was his friend and champion, George Bernard Shaw, who, in an attempt to keep one of England’s greatest composers from withering on the vine, persuaded the BBC to commission from Elgar a Third Symphony.
Elgar, who died in 1934, worked at the piece during the last year of his life, jotting down his ideas – some merely a few bars in length, others, pages in full score. As his health deteriorated, he realized he would never be able to complete the work, and he made contradictory remarks concerning his intentions over the fate of the sketches.
Another of his friends, the violinist W.H. Reed, passed many hours playing through what existed of the piece, with the composer at the piano. After Elgar’s death, Reed published 40 pages worth of sketches into a memoir, which kept the work at the periphery of the public consciousness.
Several attempts have been made over the decades to make something more of the sketches, but musicians and musicologists have always been stopped short by the Elgar estate.
The composer Anthony Payne became interested in the fragments in 1972. For many years, he worked at a realization of the piece, again meeting resistance from Elgar’s heirs, until it became apparent that, due to the publication of the sketches in Reed’s book, the material would soon fall into the public domain. The family opted to capitalize on what control it had left and finally authorized Payne’s efforts.
His realization was given its premiere in 1998 and granted broad exposure through performances by major orchestras, particularly in England and the United States (including the Philadelphia Orchestra), and the piece has been recorded at least four times.
The formal title is “Edward Elgar: The Sketches for Symphony No. 3 Elaborated by Anthony Payne,” or the “Elgar/Payne Symphony No. 3,” for short. You’ll have a chance to hear it tonight.
I hope you’ll join me for “No Payne, No Gain,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.
Also, of perhaps related interest, here’s an article about Payne’s completion of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 6″:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3654077/Finishing-touches.html
PHOTOS: A Payne on Elgar’s side
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