Tag: Harriet Cohen

As the days grow short and the weather more miserable, revive your spirits with a kind of musical marble cake, this afternoon (if there is an afternoon) on The Classical Network.

One vein will consist of historic recordings of pianist Harriet Cohen, composer and conductor Robert Kajanus, and baritone Harry T. Burleigh. Another will celebrate conductors Kajanus, Sir John Barbirolli, and Mariss Jansons. (Jansons died on Saturday at the age of 76.) Yet another will explore music from the north, including works by composers Kajanus, Jean Sibelius, and Johan Svendsen.

The magnetic Cohen captivated seemingly every British composer of her day. In particular, her love affair with Sir Arnold Bax lasted for over 40 years. Bax wrote most of his piano music for her. His most famous work, the symphonic poem “Tintagel,” ostensibly inspired by the ruins of the Arthurian castle overlooking a tempestuous Cornish seascape, is said to enshrine all the passion the two musicians felt for one another during an especially ardent six weeks over which they vacationed there. We’ll hear a classic performance, with Barbirolli presiding.

In 1936, Bax and Cohen traveled together to Helsinki to meet Sibelius, who also greatly influenced Bax’s music. Jansons will be remembered, in part, through his conducting of Sibelius, over whose idiom he demonstrated particular mastery.

Sibelius’ earliest champion was Robert Kajanus. Kajanus conducted the first performances of many of the composer’s major works. He also wrote over 200 pieces himself. Of those, we’ll hear “Aino,” after an episode in the Kalevala. In addition, Kajanus will conduct music by his good friend and drinking buddy.

Harry T. Burleigh’s influence on American music is incalculable. While a student at the National Conservatory of Music in New York, he happened to be overheard by the institute’s director, the newly-installed Antonin Dvořák, while singing African-American spirituals. Dvořák was captivated.

Burleigh’s significance looms large in Dvořák’s music of his American years. More to the point, it informs the Czech master’s exhortation to composers of the United States to embrace spirituals and music of Native Americans as building blocks for a vibrant new art music, one with a distinctive national character. If Dvořák was the godfather of American music, then surely Burleigh was the great uncle. We’ll hear some of Burleigh’s own works, as well as his own documented performance of “Go Down, Moses.” Of course, we’ll have to include a little Dvořák, too.

Happy birthday, Sir John Barbirolli, Harry T. Burleigh, Harriet Cohen, and Robert Kajanus, and rest in peace, Mariss Jansons.

With ingredients like those, no matter how you slice it, you’ll wind up with all the marbles, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.