Classic Ross Amico

Richard Arnell Rediscovered on WWFM

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Ross Amico

April 9, 2019

in Daily Dispatch

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It’s been brought to my attention by Patrick Jonathan that tomorrow will mark the tenth anniversary of the passing of English composer Richard Arnell. While I am not in the habit of commemorating death anniversaries, I will make an exception in the case of this neglected and deserving composer of much attractive and inspirational music.

Join me today on The Classical Network, following today’s Noontime Concert, for a sampling of Arnell’s output. Just how much of it will be heard remains to be seen. I’ve pretty much got a clean slate from 1 to 4 p.m. EDT.

First, we’re off to midtown Manhattan for another concert presented under the auspices of Gotham Early Music Scene (or GEMS). Empire Viols will perform a program of transcriptions of organ trios by Johann Sebastian Bach and Bach pupil Johann Ludwig Krebs. The concert was given last June at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, 325 Park Avenue, as part of GEMS’ free Midtown Concerts series. Free concerts are held at St. Bart’s every Thursday at 1:15 p.m. This Thursday, Douglas Lundeen will perform a recital of French works composed for the piston-valve French horn. To find out more, visit gemsny.org.

Then stay tuned, as I dip into my arsenal of Arnell. I’ll be manning the cannons against the canon, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

If you’re interested, here’s a link to a conversation I had with Warren Cohen, music director of the MusicaNova Orchestra. Musica Nova is a really fascinating organization, based in Phoenix, AZ, that bills itself as presenting “the greatest music you’ve never heard – yet.” Cohen knew Arnell personally and gave the U.S. premieres of a number of his major works. The interview took place on the occasion of the composer’s centenary. The soundfile includes a Musica Nova performance of Arnell’s Symphony No. 5 – subtitled “The Gorilla!” – and Cohen’s beautiful arrangement for string orchestra, sanctioned by the composer, of the Elegy from Arnell’s String Quartet No. 3.
Ron Howard Doc Mayberry’s Musical Secret

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Ross Amico

April 9, 2019

in Daily Dispatch

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One might not be surprised to find Opie at the Opry. But music in Mayberry, it turns out, doesn’t end with Fife. Ron Howard has made a documentary about the only man with a better voice than Gomer Pyle. Let’s hope this is better than Aunt Bee’s pickles!
Celebrating Adrian Boult and Musical Birthdays

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Ross Amico

April 8, 2019

in Daily Dispatch

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As a self-professed anglophile, I do so enjoy the recordings of Sir Adrian Boult. I am especially grateful for the famous ones, the recordings and re-recordings of the repertoire with which he is most closely associated – the works of Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Holst, and some of the lesser sons of Albion.

But Boult’s interests – and excellence – extended across a considerably wider field, and though not always reflected in the comparative timidity of what record companies were prepared to roll the dice on, Sir Adrian was always game for Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Stravinsky, and even the Second Viennese School.

I’m hoping to reflect just a little of that questing spirit in what I have to work with, this afternoon on The Classical Network, as I celebrate Boult’s birthday with compelling performances of Sibelius and Schumann alongside perhaps the more expected fare.

It will be a very competitive playlist, however, as I’d also like to offer salutes to John Antill, Franco Corelli, Asger Hamerik, Josef Krips, Karl Hermann Pillney, and Giuseppe Tartini, all of whom were also born on this date. I’ve only got three hours to do so, and each of these figures, it seems, is more fascinating than the last.

When so spoiled for choice, what’s a poor radio host to do? Sense my frantic indecision when you tune in today, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, to WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Boult, a spring chicken at 80. He died in 1983, at the age of 93.
Greek Myths in Music Medusa Penelope & More

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Ross Amico

April 7, 2019

in Daily Dispatch

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Medusa. Penelope. The Sirens. The Fates. Pandora.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll complete our set of mythological bookends that began with “Picture Perfect” on Friday evening – a mythological mash-up of film scores from movies based on classical myths – with a program devoted to two works inspired by familiar tales from Greek mythology.

Female characters from the classical myths provide the inspiration for Stacy Garrop’s “Mythology Symphony.” The movements of Garrop’s symphony – really more of a collection of symphonic poems – were composed between 2007 and 2013, on separate commissions from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (“Becoming Medusa”), the Albany Symphony Orchestra (“The Lovely Sirens” and “The Fates of Man”), and the Chicago College of the Performing Arts, Roosevelt University (“Penelope Waits” and “Pandora Undone”), where Garrop was associate professor of composition from 2000 to 2016.

Likewise, archetypes from Homer inform Princeton composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s post-genre song cycle “Penelope.” Inspired by “The Odyssey,” Snider’s work originated as a music-theater monodrama, composed in 2007-08, on texts by playwright Ellen McLaughlin. A woman’s husband, a veteran of an unnamed war, returns home after 20 years. He suffers from brain damage and memory loss. The woman reads to him from Homer’s epic as together they journey through the healing process.

The cycle explores the subjects of memory, identity, and what it means to come home, alongside the terrors and traumas of war. Musically, “Penelope” straddles the worlds of chamber music and indie rock, with any demarcations between the two skillfully blurred and blended. We’ll hear selections from Snider’s song cycle to round out the hour.

Enduring myths of the ancient world are viewed from fresh perspectives this week, on “Myth Conceptions,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Remembering André Previn: A Hollywood & Classical Music Giant

by

Ross Amico

April 6, 2019

in Daily Dispatch

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The outpouring of love and grief precipitated by the death of André Previn on February 28 seems to have brought the music world to state of catharsis. So I wonder how many will pause to remember him today, on what would have been his 90th birthday. Clearly any musical tributes will take place as scheduled over the coming season.

For now, I offer a few reminiscences of “Previn & The Pittsburgh,” a television series featuring performances by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, introduced by Previn, then the orchestra’s music director. Of particular interest was an episode subtitled “The Music that Made the Movies,” devoted to outstanding film scores, with special guests John Williams and Miklós Rózsa. To hear Rózsa talk and to see him conduct his music for “Ben-Hur” is priceless.

It is to be remembered that before he became recognized as a world-class conductor of symphonies, Previn enjoyed an active and successful career in the film industry, where he rubbed shoulders with many Hollywood legends, musical and otherwise.

Thank you, André Previn, for all the beauty, inspiration, solace, and refinement you brought to the world.

Previn conducts Jerry Goldsmith, from “The Blue Max.”

Miklós Rózsa talks about Old Hollywood and Bernard Herrmann.

Previn conducts Bernard Herrmann’s music for “Psycho.”

Rózsa, bringing it Old School, as he conducts “Ben-Hur.”

Previn invites John Williams to conduct “Star Wars.”

Williams conducts “Superman.”

Three Magi of movie music (left to right): Williams, Previn, and Rózsa