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THE FIFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
The Twelve Days of Christmas have, for me, given way to the Twelve Labors of Hercules. Newspaper articles, radio shifts, scripts, production work, interviews, commuting, holiday appointments, email email email, and an additional, special project on an epic scale to air on WWFM on January 6. More on that later, once I finish cleaning the Augean Stables.
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THE FOURTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we do our best to maintain a festive spirit with selections from the notorious – and uproarious – Hoffnung Music Festival concerts.
Gerard Hoffnung was born in Berlin in 1925. His family fled the Nazis while he was still a boy and settled in London, where Gerard became more English than the English. Over the next two decades, he attained celebrity through his work as a cartoonist, a sparkling panelist and a public speaker. He was lauded as a brilliant improviser with a dry wit and a masterly sense of timing. In addition, he played the tuba well enough that he was able to tackle the Vaughan Williams concerto.
Following his participation in an April Fool’s concert in 1956, Hoffnung embarked on the enterprise which, aside from his cartooning, ensured a kind of immortality – the first of the Hoffnung Music Festival concerts. The concerts brought together representatives of England’s finest musical talent to lampoon what, especially at the time, could be perceived as a rather stodgy art form.
For the inaugural effort, Sir Malcolm Arnold wrote “A Grand, Grand Overture” for an orchestra augmented by a rifle, two electric floor polishers and a vacuum cleaner. (The work was dedicated to President “Hoover.”) Sir William Walton walked on to conduct a one-word excerpt from his cantata “Belshazzar’s Feast,” in which he picked up the baton and the chorus shouted, “Slain!”
There would be three Hoffnung concerts in all. Alas, the third was presented posthumously. Hoffnung collapsed at his home in 1959 and died of a cerebral hemorrhage three days later, at the age of only 34! He was a mere child by today’s standards, yet he seemed his entire life to be a brilliant middle-aged man, always at the peak of his form.
I hope you’ll join me for “Have a Ball: Laughing in the New Year with the Hoffnung Music Festival Concerts,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat New Year’s Eve at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTOS: Gerard Hoffnung and one of his creations
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THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS
“Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember.”
Oscar Levant (1906-1972)
Happy birthday, kindred spirit!
P.S. Marvin Rosen’s “Viva 21st Century” marathon is underway (it began at 2 p.m. ET) on WPRB Princeton, at 103.3 FM or http://www.wprb.com. Enjoy Marvin for 25 hours, as he is buoyed up by energy snacks, tea and his boundless enthusiasm for contemporary music. It’s all very un-Oscar Levant.
Levant plays Gershwin:
Levant on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar:
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Eesh. Two posts already today, and I forgot to mention “Picture Perfect!” What day is it, anyway? Holidays…
With everyone still reeling from Christmas, I thought I would present an hour of music from movies about toys, including selections from “Citizen Kane” (shhh, don’t give it away), with music by Bernard Herrmann; “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” (it’s in the basement of the Alamo!), with music by Danny Elfman; “Toccata for Toy Trains” (Charles and Ray Eames love vintage toys), with music by Elmer Bernstein; and “Toy Story” (not much of a stretch there), with music by Randy Newman.
That’s toys everywhere this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. I hope you’ll join me tonight at 6 ET, or for the repeat, tomorrow morning at 6; or that you’ll catch it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.
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End of the year celebrations make up the meat of my article in today’s Trenton Times.
The New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra will present a New Year’s Eve concert at the Trenton War Memorial, beginning at 8 p.m. on 12/31 (obviously). The program will be simulcast over WWFM The Classical Network, which can be heard locally at 89.1 FM, or at http://www.wwfm.org.
In other radio news,Marvin Rosen of “Classical Discoveries” will host a 24-hour “plus” marathon of contemporary music, “Viva 21st Century,” over WPRB Princeton, beginning at 2 p.m. tomorrow and concluding at 3 p.m. Sunday. WPRB may be heard at 103.3 FM, with streaming at http://www.wprb.com.
The reality of New Year’s Eve is generally pretty terrible, but good music makes the bitter pill go down easier.
Read more about it here:
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/nj_capital_philharmonic_to_rin.html
PHOTO: Composer Robert Moran (right) will be one of several drop-by guests during the course of Marvin Rosen’s “Viva 21st Century” marathon on WPRB
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