It’s funny, when you’re a kid, there’s nothing more exciting than snow. You stay up half the night, waiting for the first flake, and then in the morning you’re out the door making snowballs and building forts until your mom calls you back for lunch (grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup), and your gloves are wet and your fingers are frozen and you’re half-blind as you knock the snow out of the wales of your corduroys, and Mom tells you to take off your boots and not get snow on the carpet.
When you’re an adult, you put away childish things, and freak out.
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” we’ll keep calm and carry on, with a program designed to boost your serotonin and minimize your chionophobia (snow anxiety). We’ll welcome what comes with a playlist of snow-inspired works by Ronald Binge, Frederick Delius, Georgy Sviridov, Sergei Prokofiev, Angela Morley, Edward Elgar, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Adam Saunders.
Tune in and drop out – in front of the fireplace with a hot beverage of your choice. There’s no music like snow music, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!
Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:
https://kwax.uoregon.edu/
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IMAGE: Princeton’s own Patrick McDonnell tells it like it is
Tag: British Light Music
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Let It Snow on “Sweetness and Light”
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Remembering Ronald Corp British Light Music Champion
Although I was certainly familiar with the work of Eric Coates and Albert Ketèlbey, it was Ronald Corp, more than anyone, who introduced me to the wider world of British Light Music, a genre he championed on four albums released on the Hyperion Records label. After all, as an American, how else was I supposed to hear this stuff? This is music of a type that was once played on English radio, in department stores, and by palm court orchestras – by design, undemanding, uplifting, and insistently memorable.
This week on “Sweetness and Light,” we remember – and celebrate – Corp, who died on May 7 at the age of 74. We’ll hear light music classics by Robert Farnon, Clive Richardson, Edmund White, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs, Charles Williams, Ronald Binge, and Trevor Duncan. I imagine generations of Americans might be surprised to learn that one of the pieces was borrowed by children’s show host Bob Keeshan for the theme to his television program “Captain Kangaroo!”
Corp was also an enthusiast of, at best, dimly-recollected English musical comedies dating back to the time of Arthur Sullivan. We’ll hear selections from two of these, Sidney Jones’ “The Geisha” and Harold Fraser-Simson’s “The Maid of the Mountains.”
I’m only sorry I had to cut out so much from this morning’s program. I got a little carried away, between selecting music and my own spoken contributions, and I wound up having to trim a good 15 or 20 minutes off the show! (Alas, Arthur Sullivan’s pre-W.S. Gilbert opera, “The Contrabandista,” had to be jettisoned to the cutting room floor.)
Corp was also a composer himself, and an Anglican priest! He recorded much else besides, including albums devoted to European and American Light Music classics; also more substantial – some would say “more serious” – fare. Most of these were issued on Hyperion and Dutton Vocalion Records.
Personally, I feel like I owe Corp a lot, as it only occurs to me now, that he was probably the single greatest influence on my creation of this show. Now I wish there were some way I could tell him.
Music of this sort is often deceptively simple – breezy, carefree, a tad sentimental, and fun – but it takes a special talent to be able to craft miniature masterpieces that, at their best, satisfy through ingratiating melody, imaginative color, and evocative mood.
We’ll trip the light fantastic with light music recordings of Ronald Corp, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Stream it wherever you are at the link:
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Sweetness and Light Premiere on KWAX Radio
Don’t miss the world premiere broadcast of my new show, “Sweetness and Light,” this morning on KWAX!
Going forward, I’ll be adding a third show to my syndicated output, offering a weekly playlist of British Light Music, ballet, operetta, waltzes, marches, parlor music, and piano miniatures of a kind once familiar from Grandma’s piano bench – in short, undemanding fare calculated to charm and to cheer and to help you forget your worldly woes.
It’s all holiday-oriented this week, so why not give it a whirl. And then be sure to drop back later in the day, when I share selections from Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s oratorio “Die Geburt Christi” (“The Birth of Christ”) on “The Lost Chord.”
I’m dreaming of a light Christmas. Happy holidays to you!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast (the radio station of the University of Oregon), so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, at the link!
PHOTO: Dangling a carrot, deer ones, for “Sweetness and Light”
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A Light Christmas with Sweetness and Light
I’m dreaming of a “light” Christmas.
It is with great excitement that I announce the impending launch of a brand-new show, to be broadcast weekly from my current home-away-from-home, KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.
As you may know, I’ve always had a soft spot for the confectionary genre known as British Light Music. This is a kind of music that was once widely enjoyed in theaters, at seaside resorts, on popular radio programs, and even as background to enhance the shopping experience. It was certainly a fertile field for anyone looking to pluck a memorable signature tune. (For a prominent example in the U.S., one need look no further than Captain Kangaroo, who poached Edward White’s “Puffin’ Billy.”) British Light Music will be well-represented, alongside light music from other sources, on “Sweetness and Light.”
Depending on the week, we’ll also hear selections from ballet, highlights from operetta, dollops of film music, waltzes, marches, parlor music, and piano miniatures of a kind once familiar from Grandma’s piano bench. I suppose now GREAT-Grandma’s piano bench. In short, undemanding fare, calculated to charm and to cheer and to help you forget your worldly woes.
With Christmas only days away, this week’s playlist will include several works evocative of wintry scenes (including the original version of “Jingle Bells,” published in 1857, and rendered as a hilarious parlor song), incidental music from a now-forgotten Christmas pageant (spearheaded by Reginald Owen, who went on to play Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1938 film version of “A Christmas Carol”), ingratiating selections by two composers associated with the movies (Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Henry Mancini), and some steaming bowls of keyboard wassail (courtesy of Billy Mayerl and Percy Grainger).
This is the first show produced entirely in my home studio. Now that I’ve got it down, we can also expect fresh installments of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” in the coming year.
“Sweetness and Light,” my third syndicated show, will take its inaugural bow this Saturday, December 23, at 8 a.m. PST. (That’s 11 a.m. here on the East Coast.) Sweeten your morning and lighten your spirit by listening at the link.
Stay positive, embrace beauty, and have a happy holiday!
Captain Kangaroo’s got some ’splainin’ to do
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British Light Music for Late Summer Evenings on KWAX
I think we can all use more light in our lives.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” British Light Music is a genre I think perfectly suited to the month August, when it is still summer, but the light begins to take on a more lambent quality.
Furthermore, the music is all very civilised [sic], conjuring a world of palm courts and spa orchestras, comfortable evenings spent around the radio, and carefree days by the sea.
Take a nostalgic journey with an hour of vintage recordings of works by Albert Ketèlbey, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Sir Edward Elgar, Richard Addinsell, George Scott-Wood, Haydn Wood, Billy Mayerl and Eric Coates.
You provide the tea and cucumber sandwiches; I’ll supply the sweetness and light. I hope you’ll join me for “Distant Light,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Keep in mind, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
Stream them here!
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