A new monument to Ennio Morricone was unveiled in Viggiano, a small town in the province of Potenza, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, on August 29.
You’ll find details at the link. If you’re not fluent in Italian, you’ll have to use your translator function.
Thanks to Mather Pfeiffenberger for the heads-up!
With rain and snow and impending frigid temperatures in the forecast for this week for the immediate listening area, we find a welcome escape in today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, as we’re off to sunny Italy with Tempesta di Mare – Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra.
Though no doubt aptly named (Tempesta di Mare = storm at sea), the group will present “A Tale of Two Italian Cities,” with musical selections from Venice (by Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Dario Castello) and Naples (by Alessandro Scarlatti, Andrea Falconieri, and Francesco Mancini).
Then, to take us up to 2:00 – how could I possibly resist? – we’ll hear Franz Liszt’s tale of two Italian cities, from the second volume of his “Years of Pilgrimage,” “Venezia e Napoli,” with the great pianist Lazar Berman.
The centerpiece of the afternoon will be Henri Sauguet’s Symphony No. 2, subtitled “Allégorique,” a winter-to-winter traversal of the four seasons that employs an atmospheric chorus and orchestra. The 90-minute work has been danced and presented as a straightforward oratorio. An early radio broadcast even incorporated the sounds of nature.
The forecast may be soggy, but the music will be Sauguet. We emerge from winter, if only fleeting, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Viva Italia!
We’re off to sunny Italy for this week’s “Music from Marlboro.”
Like a kind of musical Hannibal, Giuseppe Verdi brought elephants to the operatic stage. The premiere of “Aida” in Cairo in 1871 featured a dozen pachyderms and fifteen camels into the bargain. But when a Naples performance of Verdi’s grandest grand opera was delayed, the composer sought diversion on a much smaller scale. Verdi tossed off his first piece of chamber music at the age of 60.
The String Quartet in E minor was given an informal performance at the Hotel delle Crocelle on April 1, 1873. Said Verdi of his latest creation, “I don’t know whether the Quartet is beautiful or ugly, but I do know that it’s a Quartet!” We’ll get to hear it in a 1969 performance featuring violinists Pina Carmirelli and Endre Granat, violist Martha Strongin Katz, and cellist Ronald Leonard.
Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 – known as the “Italian” – had its origins in a European tour undertaken by the composer between 1829 and 1831. Mendelssohn’s Italian sojourn threw him into ecstasies. In a letter to his parents, he effused, “Italy at last! …[W]hat I have all my life considered as the greatest possible felicity is now begun, and I am basking in it. …[T]hank you, my dear parents, for having given me all this happiness.”
The composer did his best to capture his impressions in music. The symphony’s first performance in London in 1833, which Mendelssohn himself conducted, made him the most emulated composer in England for the remainder of the 19th century. However, despite the work’s overwhelmingly positive reception, he continued to feel a nagging dissatisfaction with it. He revised the symphony in 1834, with plans for further changes, and the score was never published in his lifetime. He even claimed that it caused him some of the bitterest moments of his career. Naturally, it went on to become his best-loved symphony.
We’ll hear Pablo Casals lead an enviable roster of musicians from the 1963 Marlboro Music Festival. It’s difficult to single anyone out, but Bernard Goldberg, John Mack, Myron Bloom, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Jaime Laredo, Caroline Levine, Irene Serkin, Sidney Curtiss, Samuel Rhodes, Herman Busch, Lynn Harrell, Julius Levine, and all four members of the Guarneri String Quartet are among the personnel. Casals was affiliated with Marlboro for the last 13 years of his life, from 1960 until his death, at the age of 96, in 1973.
We’ve got sunshine on a rainy day on the next “Music from Marlboro,” this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
This summer’s Marlboro Music Festival continues through August 12. Find out more at marlboromusic.org.
Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page
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