If, like me, you’re in the Northeast, hopefully you’re enjoying winter’s last gasp (on the second day of spring!) from someplace warm and comfortable, preferably with a mug of tomato soup and a toasted cheese sandwich at your side, and plenty of great music at the touch of a button or the click of a mouse.
Although The Classical Network’s daylong celebration of Bach’s birthday has been postponed due to the inclement weather, nothing, not even Mother Nature, can impede an all-Bach “Music from Marlboro.” Join me for sublime music-making by the likes of Marlboro legends Pablo Casals, Felix Galimir, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Rudolf Serkin. Even the personnel of the Marlboro Festival Orchestra is stuffed with already-legendary and soon-to-be-legendary performers. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Unfortunately, my original cut for the 58:30 show was an hour and four minutes! There was so much wonderful material, I couldn’t bring myself to delete any of the music, but I had to cut my text to the bone. So here is some of the background material that was left on the cutting room floor.
About Pablo Casals: The legendary cellist was affiliated with the Marlboro Music Festival for the last 13 years of his life, from 1960 to 1973. It was Casals who, at the age of 13, rediscovered Bach’s cello suites in a thrift shop in Barcelona. His 1939 recordings established the works as cornerstones of the modern repertoire. Casals’ loving, humanistic interpretations of Bach’s orchestral works (as well as those of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann) at Marlboro form a remarkable capstone to an enviable career. We’ll hear Casals in 1965, conducting Marlboro musicians, including trumpeter Robert Nagel, flutist Ornulf Gulbransen, oboist John Mack, and violinist Alexander Schneider, in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.
About Mieczyslaw Horszowski: The great pianist died in 1993, just shy of his 101st birthday. He had one of the longest careers of any performing artist. Horszowski was a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky, who was a pupil of Carl Czerny, who in turn was a pupil of Beethoven. Horszowski played Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in public for the first time in 1901! He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 1942. He remained there for over 50 years, giving his last lesson a week before his death. We’ll hear Horszowski in 1982, performing Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 7 in G minor, BWV 1058.
About Felix Galimir: This marvelous musician had an amazing career. He was a violinist with the Vienna Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony (under Toscanini), formed the Galimir Quartet, and was in residence at Marlboro from 1954 until his death in 1999. Galimir will be on the podium, accompanying the venerable Horszowski in the aforementioned Bach concerto.
About Rudolf Serkin: The visionary Serkin co-founded the Marlboro Music Festival in 1951, with Adolf and Herman Busch, and Marcel, Blanche, and Louis Moyse. In addition to being one of the most revered pianists of his generation, he managed to direct the festival for 40 years, until his death in 1991. We’ll listen to Serkin’s probing and intimate account, from 1976, of Bach’s 14 Canons, BWV 1087, on the first eight notes of the aria ground from the “Goldberg Variations.”
Along the way, we’ll also hear a Trio Sonata in G major, BWV 1038, performed in 1974 by flutist Michel Debost, violinist Pina Carmirelli, cellist Ronald Leonard, and harpsichordist Mark Kroll!
Not much talk from me, but lots of great music, as we celebrate Bach on “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network. Please support us in advance of our belated Bach birthday celebration (which will take place tomorrow, hopefully, if we’re not under ten feet of snow) at wwfm.org. Thank you for your support, and Happy Birthday, Bach!
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
