Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Harp

Childhood Summers with Harpist Alisa Sadikova

I’ve been kicking around themes for this weekend’s “Sweetness and Light,” hoping to write and record the show today, and it occurs to me, it being a light music program with something of an escapist bent, I might indulge my nostalgia for the carefree and seemingly endless summers of my childhood. Last week, I put together a playlist about fountains, which turned out to be a lot more satisfying than I had anticipated. To conflate the two, here’s a YouTube video I discovered while researching and refreshing my memory as to the repertoire. It’s such a remarkable document, I think it’s worth sharing – although the piece played by this astonishingly talented young harpist (at the age of 9!) is misattributed to Marcel Grandjany. It’s actually “La Source” by Albert Zabel. I think you’ll agree it is five minutes well-spent!

Alisa Sadikova is now 22 years-old. Although the actual piece did not make it onto my playlist of fountain music – who knew the competition would be so fierce? – I was very pleased to make its acquaintance, especially in Sadikova’s mesmerizing and enriching performance.

Again, this week the musical selections will be curated with the purpose of recollecting those halcyon summers of youth and adventure. I didn’t play the harp, but I sure did suck the marrow out of life. “Sweetness and Light” airs on KWAX, Saturday mornings at 11:00 EDT/8:00 EDT. Stream it wherever you are at the link. https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

July 16, 2025
St. David’s Day: Welsh Music & the Harp

St. David, the Patron Saint of Wales.

March 1st, St. David’s Day, a national day of celebration in Wales since the Middle Ages.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we honor St. David with an hour of Welsh music – interestingly, all of it in some way connected to the harp.

The structure of Grace Williams’ “Penillion” (1955) draws on the ancient Welsh practice of improvising vocal counterpoint to a traditional melody played on the harp. However, in this instance, so as not to be swallowed up by the rest of the orchestra, the role of the harp is assigned to the trumpet.

Then we’ll hear a set of variations on a traditional Welsh melody, “Megan’s Daughter,” by the 19th century harpist John Thomas. In 1861, Thomas was given the bardic name, “Chief Musician of Wales.” In 1872, he became harpist to Queen Victoria.

Bass-baritone Bryn Terfel will be heard in his first ever commercial recording, of a Welsh song on text by Caradog Pritchard, extolling the virtues of the Ogwen River. “The River’s Song” is sung to the accompaniment of the harp, as set by Elsbeth M. Jones. Terfel is joined by his former school chum, the tenor John Eifion.

Finally, we’ll have a Harp Concerto (1970), written by William Mathias. According to the composer, the first movement is connected with the land and seascapes of South West Wales, where the music was composed; while the slow movement is a landscape of the mind, reflective of the great elegies of early Welsh poetry. The last movement, a spritely jig, brings the piece to a joyful and rhythmic conclusion.

I hope you’ll join me in the wearing of the leek for St. David’s Day – “And God Created Great Wales” – tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

More about the Welsh custom of accessorizing with leeks here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/4805288/Wearing-leeks-on-St-Davids-Day.html

BONUS: Welshness in Shakespeare:

http://asc-blogs.com/2014/02/27/st-davids-day-and-welshness-in-shakespeare/

March 1, 2015
Schubert on Harp Lara St. John’s New Album

Harpeggione?

Yes, Lara St. John can be as terrible a punster as I. But she can also assume an air of propriety, when necessary, and opted to call her new album – recorded with principal harp of the Berlin Philharmonic, Marie-Pierre Langlamet – simply, “Schubert.”

On the disc, Langlamet performs Schubert’s piano parts, every blessed note as written, on a double-action pedal harp, an instrument the composer could not have known, and yet suits his creations wonderfully. The result is an insinuating, sinuous program of impromptus, lieder (including, appropriately enough, “Songs of the Harper,” with Deutsche Grammophon artist Anna Prohaska), a sonatina (with St. John) and the “Arpeggione” Sonata, with Berlin Philharmonic cellist Ludwig Quandt.

The disc is a follow-up to St. John and Langlamet’s earlier collaboration, “Bach Sonatas” (which in interviews St. John described as being for violin and “harp… sichord”). Both were issued on her own label, Ancalagon, named for her pet iguana, who in turn was named for a dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion.”

The label has been home to recordings by the New York-based chamber orchestra, The Knights, and St. John’s polka band, Polkastra, as well as a Juno Award-winning disc featuring Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, made with her brother, Scott St. John, then a member of the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

Lara St. John and Marie-Pierre Langlamet are my guests this week on “The Lost Chord,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3. Or you can catch the show later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

October 11, 2014

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS