Classic Ross Amico

  • Remembering Musicians We Lost in 2018 on WPRB

    Remembering Musicians We Lost in 2018 on WPRB

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    Ross Amico
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    6 responses

    Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for some of us to examine all the ways we’ve screwed up our lives (hopefully not irreparably) and to resolve to do better in 2018.

    More objectively, it’s also a time to remember all of those who have shuffled off this mortal coil.

    Fortunately for you, if you join me this Thursday morning on WPRB, the emphasis will be on the latter, as we listen to recordings by some of the musicians who have enriched our world through their artistry.

    Like last year, this one may turn out to be a two-parter. While it’s sad to reflect that so many talented individuals have moved on to the Great Concert Hall in the Sky, I am delighted to be able to share some of their wonderful, representative performances with you.

    Join me in celebrating the artists we lost in 2018, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It’s one of the few things left to celebrate this time of year, on Classic Ross Amico.

  • Good King Wenceslas St Stephens Day Music

    Good King Wenceslas St Stephens Day Music

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    Ross Amico
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    2 responses

    Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen. We all know the carol, which tells of the good king’s generosity – how he brought flesh and wine and fuel to a needy peasant, his faltering page literally treading in his master’s footsteps.

    What the carol doesn’t tell us is that, with all the snow lying round about, deep and crisp and even, Wenceslas could pack a wicked snowball, as seen in this medieval fresco. Woe betided the lord or lady who caught one of the king’s frigid projectiles.

    On this St. Stephen’s Day, the second day of Christmas, I hope that you too are continuing to enjoy your midwinter festivities. If you find yourself in the vicinity of a radio or are able to do a little online streaming, consider joining me for today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, which will consist of performances from the Lake George Music Festival.

    On the program will be Ralph Vaughan Williams’ early Piano Quintet in C minor, from 1903 (revised 1905). The first movement strikes a Brahmsian tone, yet there are intimations in the slow movement of the world of Hubert Parry (Vaughan Williams’ teacher) and RVW’s contemporaneous song, “Silent Noon.” Interestingly, the composer would return to the theme of the finale, put here through five variations, fifty years later, in 1954, for another set of variations for the last movement of his Violin Sonata.

    Also featured will be a brand new work – and a Lake George commission – by Philadelphia composer Sheridan Seyfried. His Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra was composed for the festival’s resident artists, brothers Nikki Chooi and Timothy Chooi. Seyfried, 32, is a product of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Manhattan School, where he studied with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and Ned Rorem.

    Then stick around. Later in the afternoon, we’ll hear another highly listenable piece of new music by Kenji Bunch, 44 – his ballet, “The Snow Queen,” after Hans Christian Andersen. The recording, a two-CD set issued on innova Recordings, was made in Eugene, Oregon, by Orchestra NEXT. Orchestra Next gave the work its premiere in collaboration with the Eugene Ballet Company. Bunch, who is also a violist, studied at the Juilliard School. He has since returned to the land of his birth and now makes his home in Portland.

    As the afternoon progresses, we’ll drop in a few more surprises for the season. It’s a feast of music for St. Stephen’s Day, this Tuesday from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    Detail from “Winter” (before 1407), by Master Wenceslas of Bohemia

  • Christmas Love and Cheer

    Christmas Love and Cheer

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    Ross Amico
    in
    3 responses

    May your Christmas be full of love and good cheer.

  • Christmas Eve Music Parry Vaughan Williams

    Christmas Eve Music Parry Vaughan Williams

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    Ross Amico
    in
    9 responses

    On Christmas Eve, with much gift wrapping and cooking yet to be done, we pause to remember the story of the first Christmas with music by a couple of English composers inspired by the Nativity.

    Alongside Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Hubert Parry was one of the key figures of the so-called “English Musical Renaissance.” He influenced a whole generation of much better known composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. We’ll hear his “Ode on the Nativity,” given its first performance on the same concert, at the Hereford Three Choirs Festival in 1912, as Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Christmas Carols.”

    Vaughan Williams, the great-nephew of Charles Darwin and an atheist in his youth, later softened into a kind of cheerful agnosticism. He dearly loved the King James Bible, and he especially enjoyed Christmas. Of course, he wrote much music on the subject. In fact, his very last composition was “The First Nowell.” He worked diligently at the piece, inspired by medieval pageants, during his final month, but died suddenly before its completion.

    However, even at 85 years-old, RVW retained a remarkable concentration. He managed to pound out the whole thing in short score in only a few weeks. Furthermore, he had actually orchestrated the first two-thirds. The finishing touches were applied by his assistant, Roy Douglas – he of “Les Sylphides” fame.

    If you like the “Fantasia on Christmas Carols,” I think you’ll really enjoy this. It’s pastoral music for a pastoral scene. Join me for “A Play in a Manger,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Christmas Movie Music From Classic Books

    Christmas Movie Music From Classic Books

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    Remember when movies used to be inspired by books, as opposed to toys and video games?

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have an hour of music from movies adapted from novels and short stories on Christmas themes, or with memorable Christmas moments.

    We’ll begin with Alfred Newman’s score for “O. Henry’s Full House,” a 1952 anthology based on five separate stories of O. Henry, each adapted by a different screenwriter and directed by a separate director. The film is doubly literary in that each of its segments is introduced by none other than John Steinbeck. We’ll be listening to music from the final portion, based on the classic Christmas story, “The Gift of the Magi.”

    Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” features a memorable Christmas chapter, in which the Marches help out a neighbor in need by donating their Christmas breakfast – only to be rewarded later in the day with a feast of their own. “Little Women” has been adapted to film at least five times (reportedly with another on the way). Thomas Newman – son of Alfred – wrote the Academy Award-nominated score for the 1994 version, the one with Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon.

    Miklós Rózsa won his third Academy Award for “Ben-Hur” (filmed three times), in 1959. We’ll be listening to music from the prologue and Nativity scene. General Lew Wallace’s novel, published in 1880, became the bestselling work of American fiction for the next 50 years. Its streak was broken in 1936 by Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind.”

    Finally, we’ll have a suite from the 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (released in the UK as “Scrooge”). I can’t even count how many times that one’s been filmed. This particular version stars the great Alastair Sim. The music was composed by Richard Addinsell – he of the “Warsaw Concerto” fame – and the performance is conducted by David Newman, Alfred Newman’s OTHER musical son.

    Settle in for a library of Christmas classics, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

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