Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Concerto for Orchestra

Zhou Tian Grammy Nominee on WWFM

Coming up in the 3:00 hour, it’s one more chance to catch Zhou Tian’s Concerto for Orchestra in advance of this Sunday’s Grammy Awards ceremony. Zhou’s piece is nominated in the category of Best Contemporary Classical Composition. We’ll hear the world premiere recording of the work, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Zhou was in Princeton last year for the U.S. premiere of his work, “Broken Ink,” with the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.

Prior to the airing of his Concerto for Orchestra, we’ll enjoy “An Exaltation of Larks” by one of his teachers, Philadelphia composer – and Pulitzer Prize winner – Jennifer Higdon. The work was written for the LARK Quartet (“exaltation” is the term for a collection of larks) of which Princeton Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Basia Danilow is a member.

Join me at 3:00 EST for an hour of outstanding contemporary music, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Zhou Tian with Basia Danilow of the PSO and the Lark Quartet

January 23, 2018
Musical Hybrids on WPRB

Ah, humans… compelled to classify everything. The more confusing the world gets, the more we try to understand. But what’s the alternative?

At a time when everything seems so fluid – language, mores, sexuality, and even gender – I thought we’d take a look at some equally perplexing musical hybrids this Thursday morning on WPRB.

Concertos are usually understood to be works for solo instrument and orchestra. However, we’ll be focusing on concertos for orchestra alone. Likewise, symphonies are ordinarily purely orchestral endeavors. We’ll hear symphonies for orchestra and prominent instrumental soloist.

Among our featured highlights will be the Concerto for Orchestra – now Grammy-nominated for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” – by one-time Classic Ross Amico guest Zhou Tian; a symphony for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan; an organ symphony by Aaron Copland, and a “concerto symphonique” for piano and orchestra by Henry Charles Litolff.

We may not know whether it’s fish or fowl, but whatever it is I’ll be tossing it in the blender, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It will be another breakfast of champions, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 18, 2018
Zhou Tian Grammy Nominee on WPRB Today

I hope you’ll join me this morning for music by Zhou Tian. Zhou was my guest on Classic Ross Amico when his work, “Broken Ink,” was performed by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra last season. Zhou’s brilliantly orchestrated Concerto for Orchestra has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of “Best Contemporary Classical Composition.” A recording, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, will provide the capstone to today’s survey of concertos for orchestra and genre-bending symphonies featuring solo instruments, which will continue until 11:00 EST on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

January 18, 2018
Symphony or Concerto Genre Bending Music

Hector Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy” (viola and orchestra). Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety” (piano and orchestra). Benjamin Britten’s Cello Symphony. These genre-bending works break all the rules. Are they symphonies or concertos?

We won’t be hearing any of these this Thursday morning on WPRB, though we will be listening to a full playlist of “concertos” for orchestra and “symphonies” for orchestra with prominent part for solo instrumentalist.

Generally speaking, the concerto for orchestra is a large-scale piece in which the various sections of an orchestra are each given an opportunity to shine. The symphonies with a prominent solo instrument? Well, there is really is no rule for that. Why Vincent d’Indy’s “Symphony on a French Mountain Air,” for piano and orchestra, is not a concerto is anyone’s guess, beyond the French custom, usually applied to organ works, of calling concertos symphonies. Call it Gallic contrarianism, if you will.

Highlights of the morning will include music by one-time Classic Ross Amico guest Zhou Tian, whose Concerto for Orchestra has been nominated in the category of “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” for this year’s Grammy Awards; organ “symphonies” by Alexandre Guilmant and Aaron Copland; a concerto “symphonique” for piano and orchestra by Henry Charles Litolff; and a “symphony” for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan.

Prepare yourself for identity crises and plenty of disorientation, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Then, why should things be different this week from any other, on Classic Ross Amico?

January 18, 2018
Béla Bartók Hungarian Master Composer

Today is the birthday of Béla Bartók (1881-1945), considered, alongside Franz Liszt, to be the greatest composer Hungary ever produced. In fact, he was one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

Bartók had a gift for absorbing the music of the villages and the countryside of Central and Eastern Europe and filtering it through his own distinctive sensibility. His was a musical nationalism very much of his time and far removed from the 19th century model as exemplified by composers like Mikhail Glinka and Bedřich Smetana.

He was one of the first to take a scientific approach to the collection and classification of folk music. His absorption of indigenous techniques led to the breakdown of diatonic harmony, which had dominated western art music for centuries, and opened up a world of possibility for those who followed. He also loved eerie dissonances, which he often employed as a backdrop to nature sounds and desolate melodies.

Bartók wrote music of varying degrees of difficulty, from a listener perspective, ranging from the opulence of his early Richard Strauss-influenced orchestral works, to the primitive savagery of his percussive piano writing, to the edgy dissonance of his six landmark string quartets, to the sweeping synthesis of Western art music and European folk music in mature masterworks like his “Concerto for Orchestra.”

Happy birthday, Béla Bartók.

Bartók speaks (in Bela Lugosi-accented English):

Bartók performs one of his most popular (and accessible) works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW4AHmTzyMo

PHOTO: The composer among Turkish tribesmen in Anatolia

March 25, 2015

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