With talent like that of Leontyne Price, the Price is always right. Join me today on The Classical Network, as we celebrate this extraordinary soprano on her 90th birthday.
We’ll hear a recording of the Verdi Requiem, made toward the beginning of her career, in the late 1950s, opposite Jussi Björling, who was getting toward the end of his (he died three months later). Filling out the vocal quartet will be Rosalind Elias and Giorgio Tozzi. It’s a fascinating document full of great singing and an unusual, mercurial touch lent by conductor Fritz Reiner, who will lead the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Then we’ll have a blistering account of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Price lending her voice to Schiller’s celebratory text, alongside Maureen Forrester, Philadelphia’s David Poleri, and Giorgio Tozzi, as a possessed Charles Munch shovels hot coals under the players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Finally, a more intimate side of Price will be revealed in the “Hermit Songs” of Samuel Barber, with the composer at the piano.
All this to follow our noontime concert today, which will feature the Quatuor Modigliani in music of Mozart, Schumann and Dvorak, on a program captured live at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Pa., as presented by the Chamber Music Society of Bethlehem.
At 6:00, it’s “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. I’ll fill you in on a little more about that on my Facebook page later on this afternoon. Suffice it to say, if you tune in early, I will treat you to a medley of some of Jerry Goldsmith’s best-loved themes on this, the anniversary of his birth. Goldsmith died in 2004.
It will be a long day for Classic Ross Amico, but worth every minute, from noon to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.