It’s Mardi Gras season! This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll adorn ourselves in purple, gold, and green, and carve ourselves some King Cake, as we listen to music from and about New Orleans.
Henry F. Gilbert, a slightly older contemporary of Charles Ives, and a composer of the New England School, was concerned with introducing folk song and the vernacular to the concert hall. His interest in the music of African Americans, then considered controversial, is reflected in works like “The Dance in Place Congo,” from 1908, a programmatic piece on Creole themes, suggestive of Sunday afternoon festivities of off-duty New Orleans slaves gathered in Congo Square.
We’ll also hear a piece by Chicago area composer Edward Joseph Collins, actually titled “Mardi Gras,” from 1923. Collins described the work as “boisterous and bizarre by turns,” evocative of the spirit of Carnival, with its enormous masks and clowns on stilts, colored streamers, confetti, lurid lights, fantastic floats and grotesque costumes.
Three Creole Romantics will offer some insiders’ views, as we hear works by Edmond Dédé, Charles Lucièn Lambert, and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, all figures born in New Orleans.
Laissez les bons temps rouler! I hope you’ll join me for “Louisiana Purchases,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
Tag: Fat Tuesday
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Fat Tuesday A Fasnacht Memory and Playlist
Fat Tuesday! I braved the snows this morning to secure a King Cake – complete with the traditional choking hazard of a tiny plastic baby boy – but I fear this year’s quest for the Holy Grail of Fasnachts has been called due to inclement weather.
If I’ve ever had a wholly satisfying fasnacht since my grandmother died, I don’t recall it. When I was a kid, I’d blow in one day after school, an oblivious whirlwind, to find the air heavy with the scent of freshly-made doughnuts. I never knew when it would happen or understood the significance. All I knew is that I’d come home one afternoon and my grandmother would be serving up heaven from an electric fryer.
A fasnacht – which you’ll also see spelled fastnacht, faschnaut, or faschnacht (and which we always pronounced “fosh-knot”) – is a fried doughnut made on Shrove Tuesday – or Fat Tuesday, if you prefer – the last day before Lent. Traditionally, the making of doughnuts was a way to clear out all the tasties a Christian is not supposed to eat again until Easter. In any case, one could use a good fast after consuming so much fried lard!
Now THOSE were doughnuts. The closest I’ve been able to find out in the real world are Italian zeppoli. Not quite the same, but they share a similar, unhealthy, fried, powdered-sugary goodness. However, zeppoli, like fasnachts, can vary. A light and puffy zeppola would bear little resemblance to my grandmother’s fasnachts, which were always cakey.
I miss those doughnuts. My grandmother was an undistinguished cook, but boy could she make fasnachts.
I would be appalled by some “authentic” Pennsylvania Dutch fasnachts, which look too soft and are served with butter and maple syrup. I need an austere fistful of claggy dough that I can enjoy with a cup of coffee.
At any rate, it’s all doughnuts, alcohol, and orgies today, as tomorrow the streets will be strewn with bottles and bodies for the start of Lent.
For now, indulge in a Classic Ross Amico Carnival/Mardis Gras playlist and laissez les bons temps rouler!
“Mardi Gras” by Edward Joseph Collins
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Prelude and Carnival from “Violanta”
Niccolò Paganini, “Variations on ‘Carnival of Venice’”
Sviatoslav Richter plays Robert Schumann, “Faschingsschwank aus Wien” (“Carnival Jest from Vienna”)
Nelson Freire plays Heitor Villa-Lobos, “Mômoprecóce” (“Carnival of the Brazilian Children”) – hold your nose through the BBC intro
Luiz Bonfá, “Manhã de Carnaval” on a Yamaha Silent Guitar
Igor Stravinsky, “Petrouchka,” set at a Shrovetide fair
Creole composer Edmond Dédé, “Méphisto masque” (with kazoo choir)
Charles Lucièn Lambert, “Bresiliana”
Hershy Kay, “Cakewalk,” after Louis Moreau Gottschalk
“Carnevale Veneziano: The Comic Faces of Giovanni Croce”
Roman Carnival scene from Hector Berlioz’s “Benvenuto Cellini”
Not my idea of a fasnacht
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/blog/116/fastnacht-day.html
The many faces of fasnacht
PHOTOS King Cake choking hazard (top); fasnachts best resembling my grandmother’s recipe
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Fat Tuesday King Cake & Mardi Gras Music
Fat Tuesday! Just returned from my morning quest to secure a King Cake. Two bakeries sold-out, but the third time’s a charm. Also, this one actually has the little plastic baby inside, which I was warned at the register is a choking hazard. Bring it! If you’re going to observe tradition, you ought to be able to do it with authenticity!
It’s all doughnuts, alcohol, and orgies today, as tomorrow the streets will be strewn with bottles and bodies for the start of Lent.
In the meantime, indulge in a Classic Ross Amico Carnival/Mardis Gras playlist (which I’ll likely add to throughout the day).
Laissez les bons temps rouler!
“Mardi Gras” by Edward Joseph Collins
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Prelude and Carnival from “Violanta”
Niccolò Paganini, “Variations on ‘Carnival of Venice’”
Sviatoslav Richter plays Robert Schumann, “Faschingsschwank aus Wien” (“Carnival Jest from Vienna”)
Nelson Freire plays Heitor Villa-Lobos, “Mômoprecóce” (“Carnival of the Brazilian Children”). Hold your nose through the BBC intro.
Luiz Bonfá, “Manhã de Carnaval” on a Yamaha Silent Guitar
Igor Stravinsky, “Petrouchka,” set during at a Shrovetide fair
Creole composer Edmond Dédé, “Méphisto masque” (with kazoo choir)
Charles Lucièn Lambert, “Bresiliana”
Hershy Kay, “Cakewalk,” after Louis Moreau Gottschalk
“Carnevale Veneziano: The Comic Faces of Giovanni Croce”
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Fat Tuesday André Previn & GEMS Concerts
Fat Tuesday! Or Fasnacht Day, as my grandmother used to call it.
Fry yourself a big plate of doughnuts and belly up to the radio this afternoon for an amazing playlist of knock-out performances by the late André Previn. We’ll celebrate the absurdly talented Previn as conductor, pianist, AND composer. The salute will commence as the clock strikes 1.
First, on today’s Noontime Concert, soprano Amaranta Viera will join the Ensemble Leonarda for a program of readings and music, which will include works by Nicolas Bernier and Jean-Baptiste Lully. The concert – “He’s Just Not That Into You!” – is an examination of classic love stories gone wrong.
It’s another gem from Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS). GEMS presents free midday concerts every Thursday at 1:15 p.m. at St. Bartholomew’s Church, 325 Park Avenue, in New York City. For more information and an overview of other GEMS’ events, including evening and weekend performances, look online at gemsny.org.
DO-NUT miss it! Pour the coffees high and tune in today from 12 to 4 p.m. EST. I’ll be dunking like Gable and flashing my legs like Colbert – or Lully, for that matter – on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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Fat Tuesday Carnival Music & Sustaining Members
Fat Tuesday! Time to stuff ourselves with doughnuts and alcohol, and to carry on with mad abandon. Tomorrow the streets will be strewn with bottles and bodies, and Lent will be upon us.
Get ready to live hard, this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we present music appropriate for the day, with a veritable orgy of carnivals, dances, and masked balls, and ample depictions of beloved characters of the commedia dell’arte.
We’ll hear Edward Joseph Collins’ “Mardi Gras,” Hershy Kay’s arrangements of music by New Orleans-born pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk into the ballet “Cakewalk,” Robert Schumann’s “Faschingsschwank aus Wien” (“Carnival Jest from Vienna”), and Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrouchka,” about love and jealousy among puppets at the Shrovetide Fair.
This level of intensity can only be sustained for so long. On the other hand, a sustaining membership to The Classical Network could go on in perpetuity.
This week is Sustaining Member Appreciation Week at The Classical Network. I hope you will consider making a monthly commitment to the station in the form of automatic withdrawals from your debit card, credit card, or bank account in whatever amount you decide. It could be $5, $10, $20 – you fix the amount. The donation will continue, once a month, until you tell us to stop. This will save us paperwork, it will save us man hours, and it will save us from losing revenue during the period after which a traditional, yearly membership will have lapsed. You can cancel or change your sustaining membership at any time.
We also encourage those of you who are already sustaining members to consider bumping up to the next level. If you’re already committed to $5 a month, do you think you can bump it up to $10? I mean, you’ll be abstaining from something during Lent anyway. Think about it – for the price of a doughnut and a coffee, you could double a $5-a-month investment in The Classical Network. You’d be strengthening the classical music service you love – and it’s a lot less fattening!
Call us now at 1-888-232-1212, or visit our website at wwfm.org and click on the “We love our Sustaining Members” link at the top of the page.
Thank you to all of you who have kept us strong over the past 35 years. I hope you’ll join me today – as a sustaining member – for a carnival blow-out, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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