At midlife, the seasons fly by so quickly, they scarcely seem to register. This week on “Sweetness and Light,” we defy the gravitational pull of back-to-school advertisements and premature Halloween displays to indulge in some nostalgic recollections of the carefree and seemingly endless summers of youth.
Join me for alternately boisterous and languid works by Eugène Bozza, Sergei Prokofiev, Déodat de Severac, and William Walton.
It’s music reflective of riding bikes, tramping through woods and meadows, building forts, laughing with friends, and getting up to no good. When you’re a kid, there’s always plenty of adventure to be had, with the guaranteed security of a homecooked meal and a roof over your head. At least if you’re as fortunate as I was.
I don’t know, perhaps this kind of off-the-leash freedom and hedonistic enjoyment is a thing of the past, in a society where dreams are strangled by subdivisions and superwarehouses, surveillance cameras and militarized police, helicopter parents and cell phones, psychopaths and existential dread. But even with a hemmed-in, over-scheduled existence crammed with organized activities and soul-crushing electronics, I think the illusion of time stretching on forever must surely still be one of the enchantments of youth?
I don’t want to think about it. In a world wreathed by barbed wire, I will hang onto my illusion that childhood is the last frontier. Listen for me rafting down the Delaware, crowing like Peter Pan, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 EDT, 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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Endless Summer of Childhood on “Sweetness and Light”
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Classical Weekend with Classic Ross Amico
With Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” sailing into theaters today, interest in Classical mythology is renewed. I mean, I think it’s always been a fascination for school children, but thanks to that early inculcation, it remains with us for the rest of our lives – sometimes pushed to the backs of our brains, but who doesn’t remember with affection the Greek heroes, their imposing quests and impossible challenges, the fickle gods, the peculiar trysts, the triumphs and turns of fortune, and perhaps most of all, the grotesque monsters?
“The Odyssey” is an excuse for me to revisit these youthful enthusiasms, as I make Classical mythology the focus of all three of my radio shows this weekend (with air times and streaming information posted below).
First, today, on “Picture Perfect,” it’s a mythological mash-up of music from fantasy films, including selections from “Helen of Troy” (Max Steiner), “Clash of the Titans” (Laurence Rosenthal), “Hercules” (Pino Donaggio), and “Jason and the Argonauts” (Bernard Herrmann).
Then, tomorrow morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s an ambrosial assortment of pieces inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice, Daphnis and Chloe, Hercules, and a riot of nymphs, satyrs, and fauns, vividly evoked by Jacques Offenbach, Howard Hanson, Cécile Chaminade, George Frideric Handel, Camille Saint-Saëns, and Maurice Ravel.
Finally, indomitable Odysseus makes his belated return from the Trojan War to Ithaca on “The Lost Chord,” in works by Ernst Boehe (“Departure and Shipwreck” from the symphonic cycle “From Odysseus’ Voyages”) and Benjamin Britten (the radio play “The Rescue of Penelope,” narrated with gusto by Dame Janet Baker), on “Home Sweet Homer.”
So much for moderation. Join me for a triple helping of Classical classics. I’ll be stringing my bow and launching arrows down a gallery of axe-heads, in celebration of “The Odyssey,” on “Picture Perfect,” “Sweetness and Light,” and “The Lost Chord” – all three originating from KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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IMAGE: “Odysseus and Polyphemus” (1896) by Arnold Böcklin -
Light Music Soloists Step into the Spotlight on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” musicians step out to strut their stuff in a collection of lighter works for solo instrument and orchestra.
Some of the pieces will be well-known, some perhaps not. We’ll enjoy a trumpet overture derived from a film score by Franz Waxman, a scherzo by the swashbuckling pianist and composer Henry Charles Litolff, a polka for bassoon and orchestra evocative of a grumpy old bear by Julius Fučík, and more.
A highlight will surely be a cello concerto by Arthur Sullivan, later of Gilbert & Sullivan fame, that was destroyed by fire but reconstructed decades later, largely from memory, by Sir Charles Mackerras.
One is the loneliest number, as the old song goes. So put your hands together for soloists stepping into the “light music” spotlight, 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/ -
Stephen Foster and Louis Moreau Gottschalk on “Sweetness and Light”
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” on this Independence Day, we’ll have music inspired by two seminal American composers – Stephen Foster and Louis Moreau Gottschalk.
Rejected out of hand by the Paris Conservatory, Gottschalk nevertheless gained the esteem of Chopin and Liszt. The barnstorming pianist spent much of his abbreviated life hopscotching around Latin America, after a scandalous affair forced him to flee the United States. Nevertheless, he always identified himself with New Orleans, the city of his birth.
Gottschalk died in Rio de Janeiro in 1869, under characteristically dramatic circumstances, after collapsing during a recital, having only just completed a performance of his piano work, “Morte!” or “Death!” He was 40 years old.
A number of his works were arranged by Philadelphia composer Hershy Kay for the New York City Ballet in 1951, as “Cakewalk.” We’ll hear a classic recording, with the Boston Pops conducted by Arthur Fiedler.
As an encore, we’ll hear Eugene List play Gottschalk’s “The Banjo,” in which the composer emulates banjo techniques and pays homage to Stephen Foster’s “Camptown Races.”
Foster was born in Pittsburgh on this date 200 years ago, July 4, 1826. The composer of more than 200 songs of which a great many of them are still very well-known today.
“Camptown Races” also inspired pianist Earl Wild to undertake his “Doo-Dah Variations.” The work received its world premiere in 1992, with the forces we’ll hear this morning, Joseph Giunta conducting the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, and the composer, Earl Wild, the soloist.
Alas, Foster too suffered an untimely death, after gashing himself in a fall against a porcelain wash basin. He was only 36 years old.
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Combined, Foster and Gottschalk had an incalculable influence on our nation’s cultural development that extended well beyond the field of “art music,” at a time when American composers couldn’t simply attend the local conservatory – because there weren’t any!
Join me this morning as we remember them (how could we forget?) on “Sweetness and Light,” exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/ -
Summer Reading on “Sweetness and Light”
Now that it’s summer, it’s time to catch up on our reading! Whether it’s a beach book or a timeless literary classic, reading for pleasure is its own reward. This week on “Sweetness and Light,” imagine yourself in a lawn chair, under a good shade tree, perhaps with a beverage at your side, and enjoy an hour of music, hand-picked to get you in the spirit.
It will be a veritable lending library of compositions for concert hall, opera house, musical theater, salon, and film, with works inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” Voltaire’s “Candide,” Victor Hugo’s “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,” Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels,” Peter Benchley’s “Jaws,” Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones.”
Celebrate two of life’s great pleasures – music and books! Set aside your cares. They’ll still be here when you get back. Get yourself in the mindset to unplug and enjoy some quiet time. Prime yourself for a carefree summer of reading, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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