Classic Ross Amico

Igor Oistrakh Violinist Dies at 90

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Ross Amico

September 1, 2021

in Daily Dispatch

6 responses

Not everyone with a stellar talent has had the privilege of having a “minor planet” named after them. But that’s precisely what happened to violinist Igor Oistrakh and his father, when Asteroid 42516 was dedicated to them in 1993.

While he never achieved quite the eminence of his old man – David Oistrakh, recognized as one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century – Igor carved out a respectable career for himself as a performer, a teacher, and a recording artist.

Of course, he also appeared as joint soloist in symphony concerts and in recitals of chamber music alongside his legendary father. The two made a specialty of Bach’s Double Concerto, which they recorded several times.

Igor taught at the Moscow Conservatory, and later in Brussels. With his wife, the pianist Natalia Zertsalova, he recorded the violin sonatas of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms.

Igor Oistrakh died on August 14 at the age of 90. The news was announced only today.

Igor Oistrakh and Natalia Zertsalova play Paganini:

Oistrakh, père et fils, play Sarasate:

Their recording, with orchestra:

The sublime middle movement of the Bach, captured in London in 1961:

In rehearsal:

The Oistrakhs and the Kogans play Vivaldi!

Igor plays the Beethoven concerto – with his father on the podium:
Hulk & Moon Zero Two Discussion

by

Ross Amico

August 30, 2021

in Daily Dispatch

4 responses

Green with envy over missing last night’s discussion about “The Incredible Hulk?” Keep your shirt on! The show is archived at Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.

We’ll be back on Friday to talk about “Moon Zero Two” (1969), a British science fiction opus set in the year 2021! The film was slated for release three months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, so a couple of references to Neil Armstrong were hurriedly inserted during post production.

What did this visionary tale get right? Essentially, Catherine Schell.

We’ll be over the moon, I’m sure, when you join us in the comments section, as we all go Schell-hunting on the next “Roy’s Tie Dye Sci Fi Corner,” this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT.

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Childhood Nostalgia in Classical Music

by

Ross Amico

August 29, 2021

in Daily Dispatch

6 responses

The end of summer can be a time of reminiscence, sentiment, and undefined yearning. The limpid air, the lambent, silvery light of late August imbue one with a sense of nostalgia, swaddled in the gentle melancholy of an idyllic dream. How I feel for the young ‘uns straining against the inescapable vortex of another school year.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear music by four composers who indulged in musical reminiscences of childhood.

William Schuman grew up to become President of Lincoln Center – and one of our country’s most respected symphonists – but his “American Festival Overture” (1939) is permeated by a three-note call-to-play (“Wee-Awk-Eee!”) recollected from his boyhood.

Haskell Small’s “Visions of Childhood” (2011) is a piano cycle in the Robert Schumann “Kinderszenen” mode, again a mature artist reflecting on halcyon days. The suite falls into ten brief movements: “A Long Time Ago,” “Playing Rough,” “A Little Story,” “Feeling Lonely,” “School’s Out,” “Haunted House,” “Frolicking,” “Look at Me!,” “Roller Coaster,” and “Lullaby.”

Charles Ives may have been a radical innovator, but his music is often infused with a nostalgia for the New England of his youth. His Violin Sonata No. 4 (1906-1915, revised in 1942) bears the subtitle, “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting,” a programmatic work that balances hymn tunes and rowdy boyhood high jinks.

Finally, as he entered his eighth decade, George Crumb embarked on a remarkably productive Indian Summer, which resulted in no less than seven volumes of “American Songbooks,” the last completed in 2011, when the composer was 82 years-old. Each volume consists of deeply personal treatments of folk songs and hymns Crumb recollected from his formative years in West Virginia.

We’ll hear selections from “American Songbook III: The River of Life” (2008). By employing his characteristic shades and cross-hatchings by way of an assortment of ear-tickling percussion effects, the composer provides his own commentary on the time-worn source material, lending it both unsuspected depth and an aura of timelessness.

It’s a far cry from “Kinderszenen.” I hope you’ll join me for “Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be” – 20th and 21st century composers look back on childhood – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Back to School Movie Music on WWFM

by

Ross Amico

August 28, 2021

in Daily Dispatch

6 responses

It’s back to school time! Enjoy it while you can.

Take notes, as we get all pedantic about music from movies with academic settings, including selections from “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (Richard Addinsell), “Dead Poets Society” (Maurice Jarre), “Back to School” (Danny Elfman), “Mr. Holland’s Opus” (Michael Kamen), and “Tom Brown’s School Days” (again, Richard Addinsell).

Minds will be sharpened and buttons will be pushed, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Incredible Hulk TV Show Nostalgia Review

by

Ross Amico

August 27, 2021

in Daily Dispatch

6 responses

My first passion was probably monster movies, especially the old Universal horror classics that I was already watching, in the reassuring presence of my mother, by the age of five.

My second passion was comic books, especially those emanating from the mighty Marvel bullpen. The Amazing Spider-Man. Captain America. The Silver Surfer and Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner.

So in 1977, when CBS scored a ratings success with a television movie inspired by “The Incredible Hulk,” you’d think I would have been in Seventh Heaven.

But I was also a purist, and the show made so many changes to the source material that the 11 year-old critic in me received it with decidedly mixed feelings. To me, the series was a little too much like “The Six Million Dollar Man” meets “Kung Fu.” (I was too young at the time to be wholly aware of “The Fugitive.”) Little “originalist” that I was, I was judging it against the impossibly destructive, brutishly monosyllabic, gloriously over-the-top Hulk of the comics.

Returning to it now, 44 years later, what do you know? For a TV movie, “The Incredible Hulk” is actually pretty good! In fact, the show’s pilot does everything right. Strong characterizations. Doomed romance. Abundant pathos. An awareness of classic monster movie conventions. In fact, it’s only sin is that it was made in the ‘70s.

Hulk’s origin, world, and situation may be totally different from those created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1962, but his TV incarnation is overflowing with humanity and heart. If only they had had the technology and production values back in 1977 that are available today, it would easily stand head and shoulders above just about any of the current crop of sterile, production line Marvel movies.

Hand-painted Olympic-hopeful Lou Ferrigno, in tattered pants and yak-hair wig, may not have been my ideal vision of the comic’s Green Goliath – the real Hulk would have dismissed him as “puny” – but he’s about as close as a real-life stand-in is ever going to get, and he does bring a Karloffian pathos to the role. And earnest Bill Bixby, as David Bruce Banner, brought two decades’ worth of accrued good will from his seemingly constant presence in America’s living rooms, thanks to his work on “My Favorite Martian,” “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father,” and “The Magician.”

I hope you’ll join Roy and me on our platform of rage, as we overdose on gamma rays, for a nostalgic trip back to “The Incredible Hulk,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Dispense your anger management therapy in the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT! (PLEASE NOTE: There will be no show tonight.)

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