Classic Ross Amico

Bach 500 Fundraiser Help Keep Classical Music Alive

by

Ross Amico

March 23, 2022

in Daily Dispatch

5 responses

As someone who has worked in public radio for over three decades, I can tell you that nothing makes a classical music host happier than a listener who reacts to our membership pleas with a donation, as a kind of Pavlovian response. They know the drill.

Those are the listeners that not only understand the necessity of our meeting our financial goals, but also the fact that the sooner we do, the sooner we can get back to the unalloyed enjoyment of what we all love – the music!

Okay, so we had a slow start on our Bach 500 fundraiser. But we’re getting there. And we have to keep going until we do. Fortunately, we are less than 200 donations away for the end of this campaign.

In case you’re only just hearing about it, here’s how it works. Every year, in honor of Bach’s birthday (March 21, 1685), we ask for 500 listeners to please make a gift to the station in any amount. Give whatever you can. Once we reach 500 donations, the pitching stops, and we all celebrate with a Bach blowout. There is much rejoicing, and then we get back to the panacea of uninterrupted music.

So why not toss us a bone? The sooner we meet our goal of 500 contributions, the sooner we get “Bach” to the music.

If you enjoy listening to the station, and you haven’t had a chance to donate yet, and you’re in a position to do so, please make a commitment in the form of your contribution today, by calling 1-888-232-1212, or by joining the Bach 500 at wwfm.org.

If you have already given, thank you so much for your support of WWFM – The Classical Network! WOOF!

https://wwwfm.secureallegiance.com/wwfm/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P=DEFAULT&PAGETYPE=PLG&CHECK=vOU2bz5JCWmgCDbf53nm9ezWDeZ%2beA1M
Lysenko’s Taras Bulba Rediscovered

by

Ross Amico

March 22, 2022

in Daily Dispatch

5 responses

It’s funny how one CD, harvested in a batch of probably dozens on one of my trips to Princeton Record Exchange, can suddenly wind up taking on such significance. In 2019, I paid a dollar for it. I never even got around to listening to it. Now, since the invasion of Ukraine, it’s seldom been out of my CD player.

Mikola Lysenko was a seminal figure of the Ukrainian national school, and “Taras Bulba” is his magnum opus. Based on Nikolai Gogol’s historical novella of patriotism and personal tragedy among the Cossacks, Lysenko’s opera drew praise from no less than Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky, himself of Cossack descent (on his father’s side), spent his summers in Ukraine and lived there for several years. Once, Lysenko played through the entire opera for him at the piano, after which Tchaikovsky rose and embraced him. So taken with it was he that he hoped to arrange a performance of it in Moscow. But Lysenko’s insistence that the work be sung in Ukrainian was an obstacle that proved to be insurmountable.

The year after Lysenko’s death, in 1912, at the age of 69, a piano reduction was published. Unfortunately, much of the opera’s original orchestration was lost and had to be reconstructed by Lysenko’s pupil, Boris Lyatoshynsky. Lysenko himself had studied orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

The first complete performance took place in Kharkiv in 1924. A revision was then undertaken to address concerns that the completion had deviated too far from the composer’s original intentions. The present-day performing edition was given its premiere in Kyiv in 1955. So fervently has the work been embraced by the Ukrainian people that a production of “Taras Bulba” now concludes every season at the Kyiv Opera.

To discover the disc in my collection is but one of the joys of maintaining a large physical library. Who can tell what other treasures are hidden in plain sight, or the next glint that will catch my eye?

Happy birthday, Mikola Lysenko. Would that I could offer my respect under better circumstances.

Click “play all” for a sampling here:
Bach 500 Fueling Classical Music on WWFM

by

Ross Amico

March 21, 2022

in Daily Dispatch

4 responses

Johann Sebastian Bach once traveled 250 miles on foot to hear Dietrich Buxtehude play the organ. Then he got himself a race car…

The WWFM Bach 500 is underway!

In celebration of the 337th anniversary of Bach’s birth (on March 21st, 1685), The Classical Network presents its annual Bach fundraiser.

We’re looking for 500 listeners to step up and make a contribution IN ANY AMOUNT. You set the level. Once we reach 500 donations, we’ll tally in the funds from our Bach Pot – contributions solicited in advance from some especially ardent supporters. Then the pitching stops, and Bach’s music continues uninterrupted.

You can do your part to make that happen by donating online right now at wwfm.org or calling 1-888-232-1212. While you’re over there at the WWFM website, you can monitor our progress by consulting the Bach 500 membership thermometer.

Your donation is like a blast of nitrous oxide, but we’re definitely built for speed. Put the pedal to the metal, and thank you for your support of WWFM – The Classical Network!

https://wwwfm.secureallegiance.com/wwfm/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P=DEFAULT&PAGETYPE=PLG&CHECK=vOU2bz5JCWmgCDbf53nm9ezWDeZ%2beA1M
Mariupol Theater Bombing Russian Atrocities

by

Ross Amico

March 20, 2022

in Daily Dispatch

3 responses

The Russian army’s atrocities continue, as a theater and an art school are bombed in Mariupol. Approximately 1700 civilians were sheltering inside.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/03/19/mariupol-theater-satellite-images/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/mar/20/russian-ukraine-war-latest-thousands-of-mariupol-residents-being-deported-to-remote-parts-of-russia-live

Miraculously, many in the theater survive.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/russia-destroys-mariupol-drama-theater-where-a-1000-civilians-were-sheltering-ukraine-officials-say
Michail Jurowski Dies at 76

by

Ross Amico

March 20, 2022

in Daily Dispatch

11 responses

The conductor Michail Jurowski has died. His father, Vladimir, was a composer, and one his sons, also named Vladimir, is a conductor, who has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra many times. His grandfather was the conductor David Block.

His family was friendly with Dmitri Shostakovich, and as a young man Jurowski would play four-hand piano with the composer. Aram Khachaturian and David Oistrakh were also frequent visitors.

Russian-born, but of Jewish heritage, he claimed to have been hindered by the effects of anti-Semitism as a student. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and found early work at the Stanislavski and Bolshoi Theaters. Then he became an assistant to Gennadi Rozhdostevensky at the Moscow Radio Symphony.

In 1989, he left Russia for Germany. He spent much of his career there, working in opera houses in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig, and as music director of the Northwest German Philharmonic, conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and principal conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra. He was also active in Scandinavia, recording with orchestras in Sweden and Denmark, and in Argentina, where he conducted the Buenos Aires Philharmonic.

In 1995, he made the first recording of Shostakovich’s unfinished opera, “The Gamblers.” In 1996, he collapsed in the pit during a performance of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” It was a beyond-and-back experience, as his heart is said to have stopped for four minutes.

My experience of Jurowski’s work is solely through his recordings, of which he made many, for labels such as CPO, Capriccio, Eurodisc, Naxos, and Sterling, among others.

Another son, Dmitri, is also a conductor. A daughter, Maria, is a music teacher.

Jurowski was 76 years-old.
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2022-03-20-conductor-michail-jurowski–working-like-a-drill.S1gcn_Nfc.html

Conducting his father’s Symphony No. 5

Adagio from Khachaturian’s “Spartacus”

The complete ballet in Berlin

Symphony No. 7 by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli

Schumann in Galicia

In conversation (subtitled)