After one last dose of tropical miserableness, coquettish Summer decided to show us what she could do yesterday with a glorious afternoon in the Princeton area that really was more like Autumn. It turns out she was holding back all along, the big tease. Well, good riddance, baby!
We all know that Summer is high maintenance and that Autumn has the better disposition anyway. Why fight all the time with Summer, when it’s so much easier to get along with Autumn? The riot of colors, the crunching leaves underfoot, the comfy sweaters, hot beverages savored, used book fairs, classic horror movies, infinite night skies, and Thanksgiving. Welcome, O Happy Season!
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll celebrate the first full day of autumn with musical evocations by two American composers.
Henry Hadley (1871-1937) studied at home with George Whitefield Chadwick and in Vienna with Eusebius Mandyczewski. In Europe, he befriended Richard Strauss and conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in his own Symphony No. 3. He was assistant conductor at the Mainz Opera, later music director of the Seattle Symphony, and became the first conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. One of his operas, “Cleopatra’s Night,” was performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. He served a stint as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, he founded the National Association of Composers and Conductors, and he was instrumental in establishing the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood. He guest conducted orchestras from Buenos Aires to Tokyo. Why then do so few remember him?
We’ll dig deep into the leaf pile of music history to revive Hadley’s Symphony No. 2, from 1901, subtitled “The Four Seasons.” The work begins with an evocation of a turbulent winter storm, followed by “Spring,” then “Summer.” The symphony concludes with a melancholy portrait of autumn, enlivened by the appearance of some rollicking hunting horns.
Toward the end of the hour, we’ll have just enough time for music by Leo Sowerby (1895-1968), sometimes called “the Dean of American Church Music.” Sowerby was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 for his cantata “Canticle to the Sun.” As antidote to the reflective nature of Hadley’s “Autumn,” we’ll conclude with the exuberant “Comes Autumn Time,” an uplifting work for solo organ.
I hope you’ll join me for “Well-Seasoned” – American composers of experience celebrate autumn – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
