This week on “The Lost Chord,” we present a Christmas bouquet of sorts.
Hugo Distler’s “Die Weihnachtsgeschichte” (“The Christmas Story”), from 1933, is an otherworldly, a cappella masterpiece, punctuated by seven variations on the carol “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” (“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming”). Over the course of some 40 minutes, the work reinvents the Baroque Christmas cantata, after the manner of Heinrich Schütz, and does so quite beautifully, conjuring the calm and quiet of a bygone era. The composer described the piece as “an oratorio with chamber music character.”
Unfortunately, Distler’s life proved anything but calm. A man of conscience, he yet remained in Nazi Germany. He joined the Party with reluctance, when he realized his employment at the Lübeck Conservatory hinged on his doing so. Nevertheless, it did not smooth his path. The war separated him from his family, robbed him of many of his friends, and battered his psyche with nerve-wracking aerial assaults. Job pressures and fear of being conscripted into the German army further contributed to his anxiety.
Furthermore, his devotion to sacred music put him at odds with the authorities, who were intent on twisting the Lutheran Church to its own ends. The Nazis wound up branding Distler’s works “entartete,” or “degenerate.” Unable to reconcile the irreconcilable – serving both God and the Nazis – one day he pushed his bed into the kitchen and turned on the gas, committing suicide in 1942. He was 34 years-old.
Emil Waldteufel, by contrast, enjoyed much success and happiness. Although he was nearly 40 by the time he achieved international fame, his waltzes had long been a mainstay of Paris society during the Second Empire. It was the Prince of Wales – the future King Edward VII – who introduced him to London, where his music came to dominate Queen Victoria’s state balls at Buckingham Palace. One of his best-known works, “Les Patineurs” (“The Skaters’ Waltz”) was introduced there in 1882.
For our purposes, we’ll round out the hour with one of Waldteufel’s most successful waltzes from the other end of the decade, “Roses de Noël.”
The holidays are in bloom this week. I hope you’ll join me for “Christmas Roses,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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It’s the Holidays! Take Time to Smell the Roses on “The Lost Chord”
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Jingle All the Way on “Sweetness and Light”
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Yes, I know the winter solstice isn’t until next Sunday. But from where I’m typing, here on the East Coast, we’re expecting snow! Perhaps you’ve already had your share where you are. That’s the wonder of worldwide streaming. You could be sipping piña coladas south of the Equator, for all I know. But here, I’m busy designing an all-weather food-station for my backyard wildlife.
Be that as it may, since by next Saturday I’ll already be going full-bore ho-ho-ho, now’s the time to get a jump on Old Man Winter on “Sweetness and Light.” I’ll do my unlevel best to conjure some seasonal atmosphere, in providing a pleasant backdrop for compiling your holiday checklist and perhaps even filling out a few Christmas cards over a cup of tea. It will be all music evocative of wintry scenes and activities.
We’ll hear works by Philip Lane, Frederick Delius, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Leopold Mozart; also the original version of “Jingle Bells,” published in 1857 by James Pierpont as “The One-Horse Open Sleigh,” in a hilarious performance by the Robert DeCormier Singers. Be forewarned: sleighs will be “upsot!”
Put on the kettle and link arms with Classic Ross Amico. We’ll be walking in a winter wonderland on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
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The Good, the Bad and the Opera: Ennio Morricone’s “Partenope” Receives Its Belated Premiere
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Ennio Morricone’s only opera, “Partenope,” received its world premiere this evening at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples – 30 years after the work’s completion.
The opera relates the plight of the titular siren, who drowns herself after failing to enchant Ulysses. Her body washes ashore and becomes the settlement that grows into Naples. The port city celebrates its 2,500th anniversary this year.The work was commissioned in 1995 by a festival in the Campania region (of which Naples is the capital), but the event went bust before the opera could be performed.
Morricone, the composer of over 500 film and television scores, left roughly 100 concert works. He died in 2020 at the age of 91.Yes, I subscribe to the New York Times, but I probably wouldn’t have seen this today if not for Mather Pfeiffenberger. Thanks, Mather! Enjoy this “gift article” on Classic Ross Amico.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/arts/music/ennio-morricone-opera-partenope.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.uJFH.4_sS3215pW7K&smid=url-share
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Jane Austen at 250 on “Picture Perfect”
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It is a truth universally acknowledged that a radio host in possession of a weekly film music show must be in want of a good theme. This week on “Picture Perfect,” we eschew the usual fare of Vikings, pirates, and dinosaurs, to enter the world Jane Austen, in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of her birth (on December 16, 1775).
We’ll hear Rachel Portman’s Academy Award winning score for “Emma” (1996), Patrick Doyle’s music for “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), and selections from two versions of “Pride and Prejudice,” with music by Dario Marianelli (2005) and Carl Davis (1995).
Not only do Austen adaptations sport amazing casts, the scores attract some of classical music’s star performers. Listen in for contributions by soprano Jane Eaglen, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and fortepianist Melvyn Tan.
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of – at least according to “Mansfield Park.” The next best thing is a playlist assembled from Jane Austen movies. There’s an urgency for Regency this week on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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If you’re an Austenite, feel free to let me know which novel or film adaptation is your favorite!
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Brickbats and Adulation for Berlioz
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It’s a major birthday today for those of us who admire the seething Romantics.
I’ve written a lot about Hector Berlioz over the years (feel free to search at rossamico.com), but because of the day’s obligations and the mounting pressure of the holidays, I thought I could get away with sharing a few caricatures.
After all, Berlioz had one of the great heads of hair in all of classical music, and his compositions have invited parody by cartoonists who fill with their pages with exploding cannon, roaring choruses, and ruptured eardrums. No one can say Berlioz didn’t earn it, although he could exercise touching restraint, on occasion, as in his chansons, his song cycle “Les Nuits d’été,” and his Christmas oratorio “L’Enfance du Christ.”
Yeah, he could be a little crazy at times, like when he wouldn’t take no for an answer when attempting to woo the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, to the point that he composed an epic, programmatic symphony, evocative of an opium-induced fever dream, her murder (!), his execution, and a witches’ sabbat, hoping to impress her. (He did.)
Or the time he raced back to France from Italy in a coach with two loaded pistols, a vial of poison, and women’s clothes, planning a cross-dressing murder of his inconstant fiancée and her lover. (He abandoned the plot after he forgot the dress when changing coaches.)
But he could also be incisive in his observations and exhibited a wry sense of humor in his writings.
The website at the link below is full of amusing Berlioziana, and in fact it was in doing an image search for caricatures that I discovered it. The administrators are a husband-and-wife team of retired Scottish academics who are passionate about the composer. The site is the result of nearly 30 years’ effort. A lot of the images were scanned from their own personal collection, so if I’m going to violate their claim of copyright by borrowing a couple to illustrate this piece, I might as well give them some free publicity and direct you to the site, which is quite staggering as a resource for information about the composer. It betrays an obsessive quality worthy of the great Berlioz himself!
Thank you, Michel Austin and Monir Tayeb*, for all your hard work and generosity. And happy birthday, Hector Berlioz!
http://www.hberlioz.com
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*In looking more deeply into the website, I learn that Monir Tayeb passed away in 2021. My condolences to her widower, Michel Austin. I certainly mean no disrespect with my whimsical tone. I am sincerely awed by their accomplishment!
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IMAGES: From “The Hector Berlioz Website,” cartoons published in “Le Figaro,” March 3, 1883: “H. Berlioz – Before” and “H. Berlioz – Today”
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