Spring is a time of rebirth – a renaissance, if you will – so I thought it might be fun this week on “Sweetness and Light” to round out Early Music Month with an hour of Renaissance dances.
Most of these will be reimagined by 20th century composers – though with a couple of notable exceptions – and in the case of Ralph Vaughan Williams, we’ll hear a wholly original work employing early instruments. (When’s the last time you heard RVW’s “Suite for Pipes?”)
It will be venison and peacock for breakfast. Put your hands up for a program of courtly and rustic dances on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
Category: Sweetness and Light
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Put Your Hands Up for Renaissance Dances on “Sweetness and Light”
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March Madness on “Sweetness and Light”
Sir Edward Elgar completed five “Pomp and Circumstance” marches. Of course, the “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1” is the most familiar. Anyone who’s ever attended a graduation ceremony knows it. No. 4 has also enjoyed some popularity. But I find, taken as a set, all five make for a satisfying emotional journey. Judge for yourself this morning on “Sweetness and Light,” as Elgar’s marches anchor an hour in 4/4 time. That’s right, it’s our annual “March Madness” show!
As I’m sure aware if you follow this page, I’m an ardent anglophile, so you won’t be surprised to learn that I’ll also be including marches by Percy Whitlock and John Ireland. In addition, we’ll hear works by Tchaikovsky, Johan Halvorsen, and Beethoven.
These boots are made for marching on “Sweetness and Light.” The madness begins this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/ -
Oscar Nostalgia on “Sweetness and Light”
And the winner is… us!
Regardless of how you may feel about the current state of the movies, the Academy Awards are always an excellent excuse to cast a nostalgic look back on Oscar history.
Time was when a good film score was expected to be both melodic and memorable. This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” with the Academy Awards coming up, we’ll take a nostalgic look back to some indelible themes from classic movies of yesteryear.
I don’t want to lay it all out in my Facebook teaser – in fact, during the course of the show, I won’t even identify the pieces until after each one of them is played, so that you can guess along at home – but trust that you’ll likely recognize most of them, all Best Original Score winners or nominees from highly-decorated films.
As a bonus, the show will open with a 90-second montage of introductory fanfares from the great studios of Hollywood’s Golden Age. So you’ll want to be there when the lights go down.
Celluloid memories will be stirred by reel music, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/ -
Cherchez les Femmes on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” on the eve of International Women’s Day, we’ll have lighter works by six female composers: (pictured, clockwise from upper left) Peggy Stuart Coolidge, Elisabeth Lutyens, Teresa Carreño, Cécile Chaminade, Katherine Gladney Wells, and Doreen Carwithen – though not necessarily in that order. One was a crotchety avant-gardist who kept food on the table by writing music for sci-fi/horror films. One played for Abraham Lincoln at the White House. One was an heiress of the Seven-Up fortune.
I’ll fill you in, as concisely as possible, on “Sweetness and Light.” Cherchez les femmes, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/ -
Feline Affection and Frivolity on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” the cat’s out of the bag. It’s an hour of felicitous feline music!
On the 150th anniversary of the birth of American composer John Alden Carpenter, we’ll hear the ballet “Krazy Kat,” inspired by George Herriman’s cult comic strip. Carpenter characterized it as a “jazz pantomime”, but if there’s any jazz in it, it’s “white man” jazz of the 1920s (i.e. less jazz than “Rhapsody in Blue”). Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen this performed – twice! If memory serves, Sergei Prokofiev, in the U.S. for the debut of his opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and to perform his Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was present at the work’s premiere. I can’t find anything on the internet to back it up right now, so it looks like I’ll be sleuthing around my library.
Carpenter’s music will headline a meow mix of melodies by Leroy Anderson, Ernst von Dohnányi, Richard Rodney Bennett, Gioachino Rossini, Nino Rota, Samuel Barber, and Zez Confrey.
It will be programming you can sink your claws into, on “Sweetness and Light.” The music, like your host, will be the cat’s pajamas, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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