Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Benjamin Britten

Peter Grimes & Sea Music on WPRB

Shiver me timbers!

Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes” docks at McCarter Theatre Center, beginning Saturday night at 8:00. I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we anticipate the event, the anchor of this year’s Princeton Festival, with a full manifest of music about the sea.

We’ll have works representing Moby Dick, the poetry of Whitman, the sea god Neptune, RMS Titanic, mermaids, pirates and sea shanties.

At 10:00, we’ll be joined by stage director Steven LaCosse, who will talk a little bit about “Peter Grimes,” his creative process, and his long-standing relationship with The Princeton Festival. We’ll also hear excerpts from the opera.

The oaths will be as salty as the briny sea, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be making my tattoo dance, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 15, 2016
St. Cecilia’s Day: Britten, Rodrigo & Music’s Patron

November 22 is St. Cecilia’s Day. The Patron Saint of Music.

It is also the birthday of Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), who composed a “Hymn to St. Cecilia,” and Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999), who named his daughter after her.

Britten’s “Hymn to St. Cecilia”:

Rodrigo’s “El álbum de Cecilia,” subtitled “6 piezas para manos pequeñas” (six pieces for little hands) – in other words, children’s pieces. I hope you get a little enjoyment out of them.

PHOTOS: Rodrigo and Britten (top to bottom), with the Patron of the Art

November 22, 2015
Goethe’s Birthday: Schumann’s Faust & More

You want something you won’t generally hear on the radio? How about Robert Schumann’s “Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust’” – all blessed two hours of it, complete with vocal soloists and chorus. I’ve got a fine performance of it, all ready to go, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Faust, Elisabeth Harwood as Gretchen, and John Shirley-Quirk as Mephistopheles. The conductor? Benjamin Britten.

It may very well be the highlight of this morning’s show, which will be devoted to works inspired by Germany’s literary giant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), on his birthday anniversary.

Here’s the thing: in order to play what I want to play, I’ll have to start Schumann’s “Faust” at 7 a.m. So brew yourself some strong coffee and leave a message for the boss that you’ve got an emergency dental appointment and you’ll be in a little late.

There will also be symphonic poems by Liszt (“Tasso, Lament and Triumph”) and Paul Dukas (“The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” in a vintage recording with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra), plenty of music based on melodies from Gounod’s “Faust,” Beethoven’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage,” some opera arias, and lieder, lieder, lieder, from Franz Schubert to Hugo Wolf.

All you have to do is sign this parchment with your blood.

I hope you’ll join me this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, as we celebrate Goethe, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. Get your fill of the quill, on Classic Ross Amico.*

*Apparently Goethe actually preferred the pencil:

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2013/08/goethe-and-quill-and-pencil.html

August 27, 2015
Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata Birthday Tribute

Okay, it’s Schubert’s birthday. No question what I should be writing about. I confess it requires a great deal of focus not to pull another bait-and-switch and just make it all about Alfredo Casella.

Instead, here’s another composer, Benjamin Britten, with Mstislav Rostropovich, to perform Schubert’s “Arpeggione Sonata.”

Mov’t. I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AonBUbPkthc
Mov’t. II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBAVF93ve8
Mov’t. III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9qpHg3TBk

If you’re not familiar with the arpeggione (and who is these days?), it was an instrument invented around 1823. It had six strings, fretted and tuned like a guitar, but it was played with a bow, like a cello. By the time Schubert’s sonata saw publication in 1871, it was already long defunct.

Schubert’s masterful sonata is the only substantial work to have been written for the instrument, but the piece was recognized too late to rescue the arpeggione from extinction. These days, the work is almost always performed on the cello.

Happy birthday, Franz Schubert (1797-1828).

PHOTO: Berndt Bohman, principal cellist of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, playing a modern arpeggione, made by Osamu Okumura, president of the Arpeggione Society Japan. Note the absence of an end pin.

January 31, 2015
English Documentary Scores by Great Composers

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll have an hour of English documentary scores.

In England, unlike in the United States, there is no delineation between “film composer” and “concert composer.” What is often regarded here as “hack work,” there is seen as just another aspect of what it means to be a working artist. There is no disgrace in a composer earning a living, and some of the nation’s greatest musicians – including those in the employ of the Royal Family – have contributed finely-crafted works to its body of cinema.

We’ll hear music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, from “The People’s Land,” Benjamin Britten, from “The King’s Stamp,” William Alwyn, from “The Green Girdle,” and Sir Arthur Bliss, from “The Royal Palaces of Britain.” All four films are patriotic utterances on distinctly English themes.

You may not have seen any of the movies, but the music is beautiful. I hope you’ll join me for selections from English documentaries, this Friday evening at 6 ET, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later, at your convenience, as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

The complete documentary short, “The Green Girdle,” is posted on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWQDeD4J0As

As is “The King’s Stamp”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSsJHlLFg4

Thank you, Internet!

PHOTO: It’s not about what you think

December 4, 2014

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