Labor Day weekend. Summer’s last hurrah.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s an hour of quintessentially American music about travel by car.
Frederick Shepherd Converse’s “Flivver Ten Million” celebrates the Ford Motor Company’s affordable assembly line automobile, from its creation in a Detroit factory to the manifest destiny of America’s roadways.
John Adams’ “Road Movies” has nothing to do with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, alas; what it is, however, is a violin sonata written firmly within the American tradition, with a special affinity at its core with Copland’s Violin Sonata.
Virgil Thomson’s “Filling Station,” written for Leon Kirstein’s Ballet Caravan, may have the distinction of being the only ballet set at a gas station. The work’s success gave Copland the confidence to follow through on a Caravan commission which resulted in “Billy the Kid.”
Finally, we’ll hear one of Michael Daughtery’s most performed works, the exuberant “Route 66,” inspired by the storied “Main Street of America.”
Join me for “The Last Roads of Summer.” American composers hit the road for Labor Day this week, on “The Lost Chord.” This Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3. Or catch it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
