Classic Ross Amico

Tag: KWAX

Sweetness & Light Solo Instrument Showcase

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” musicians step out to strut their stuff in a collection of lighter works for solo instrument and orchestra.

Some of the pieces will be well-known, some perhaps not. We’ll enjoy a trumpet overture derived from a film score by Franz Waxman, a scherzo by the swashbuckling pianist and composer Henry Charles Litolff, a polka for bassoon and orchestra evocative of a grumpy old bear by Julius Fučík, and more.

A highlight will surely be a cello concerto by Arthur Sullivan, later of Gilbert & Sullivan fame, that was destroyed by fire but reconstructed decades later, largely from memory, by Sir Charles Mackerras.

One is the loneliest number, as the old song goes. So put your hands together for soloists stepping into the “light music” spotlight, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 25, 2025
Leif Kayser: Composer, Priest, & Organ Master

Leif Kayser was certainly a multifaceted individual. This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to some of his music, of course, but we’ll also talk about his many roles.

Born in Copenhagen on 1919, Kayser began his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 1936. In Stockholm, he studied composition with Hilding Rosenberg and conducting with Tor Mann. In 1941, he made his debut as a pianist, in Copenhagen, and as a conductor, in Gothenburg.

As a composer, he emerged as one of Denmark’s most promising young symphonists. However, following theological studies in Rome, Kayser was ordained in 1949. He largely abandoned concert music – but you can’t keep a good composer down.

Over time, he began to write for the organ and gradually he produced another symphony. He served as pastor and organist of St. Ansgar Roman Catholic Cathedral until 1964. Then he left the Church to marry and to teach at his alma mater, the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

Kayser died in 2001. He is still regarded as one of the leading organ composers of Denmark.

We’ll hear one of Kayser’s gorgeous symphonies, from 1939. That will be prefaced by “Caleidoscopio,” a work for flute and organ, composed between 1974 and 1976. After a brief introduction, it gradually becomes apparent that the piece is constructed as a series of reflections on the familiar chorale “Von Himmel hoch.” Interesting that a former Catholic priest would write variations on a chorale associated with Martin Luther!

But, like Whitman, Kayser contained multitudes, as composer, organist, pianist, conductor, priest, husband, and teacher. I hope you’ll join me for “Kayser Roles,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

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 – ALL NEW! – 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/

PHOTO: Kayser pulls out all the stops

January 18, 2025
Latin American Music Getaway on KWAX

With more snow and frigid temperatures on the way – at least where I’m typing, here in the Mid-Atlantic United States – I’m thinking it might be cheering for some to reflect that it’s actually summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Who am I to deny the pleasure? This week on “Sweetness and Light,” I invite you to think warm thoughts as we take a musical journey to Latin America.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Peru will be represented in works by Agustín Barrios, Theodoro Valcárcel Caballero, Camargo Guarnieri, Astor Piazzolla, and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

We’ll cap the hour back in New York with more cowbell and Morton Gould’s vibrant “Latin-American Symphonette.”

Join the conga line. It’s a South American getaway on “Sweetness Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 18, 2025
Nordic Music Delights Sweetness and Light

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s a program of lighter music from the northern countries.

We’ll give poor overworked Edvard Grieg a break, with Norway represented by Johan Halvorsen and the now lesser-known pianist-composer Agathe Backer Grøndahl, a pupil of Franz Liszt.

From Sweden, we’ll enjoy two versions of Hugo Alfvén’s evergreen “Swedish Rhapsody No. 1” – first, Mantovani’s popular hit from 1953, then with the composer himself conducting, from the very next year, in the first stereo recording ever made in Sweden.

Speaking of popular hits, we’ll also hear Arthur Fiedler’s bestselling recording of “Jalousie,” by Danish composer Jacob Gade (no relation to Niels Wilhelm Gade), from 1935. Fiedler remade it in stereo, but it’s my show, so I’m keeping it hardcore.

Also from Denmark, we’ll have a folk-music suite by Percy Grainger. Ah! But Grainger was not from the north, you say. He was born in Australia. Quite true. However, as an energetic pianist and composer of insatiable curiosity, he traveled seemingly everywhere, with a particular fondness for the Scandinavian countries. (His wife was Swedish.)

But if authentic Danish composers are more your thing, not to worry, we’ll round out the hour with a galop by Hans Christian Lumbye.

All eyes and ears face north this week on “Sweetness and Light.” I hope you’ll join me for this hour of northern “lights,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

January 11, 2025
Miss Marple Before Lansbury Movie Music

Before Angela Lansbury, there was Margaret Rutherford.

Rutherford played Miss Marple in a series of Agatha Christie adaptations scored by Ron Goodwin. Goodwin’s music for “Murder, She Said” (1961) will be among the selections on this week’s “Picture Perfect,” an hour of wry mysteries and thrillers featuring the sound of the harpsichord.

In the first of the Marple films, Rutherford’s amateur sleuth goes undercover as a domestic servant. Goodwin’s Miss Marple theme became a popular hit, which you may still recognize.

Bette Davis enjoyed something of a comeback following her turn in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” opposite Joan Crawford. The film singlehandedly defined a subgenre which has been variously described as “psycho-biddy,” “hag horror,” “hagsploitation,” and “grande dame guignol.” Camp and black comedy are essential elements. “Dead Ringer” (1964) was yet another “bad twin” film, with Davis’ delicious performance underscored by André Previn.

Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine play a deadly game of cat and mouse, as a mystery writer plans to exact revenge on his wife’s lover, in a big screen adaptation of Anthony Shaffer’s play, “Sleuth” (1972). John Addison, who had previously harpsichorded his way to an Academy Award with his score for “Tom Jones,” wrote the impish music.

Finally, Barbara Harris plays a fake psychic and Bruce Dern her cab-driving, private investigator boyfriend, who become embroiled with serial kidnappers, in Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, “Family Plot” (1976). The composer was none other than John Williams, poised between his breakout success, “Jaws,” and “Star Wars,” which was to make him a household name. (Both “Jaws” and “Star Wars” were Academy Award winners for Best Original Score.)

Hitchcock was full of suggestions as to the music and how it should be conducted. The composer recollects that on one occasion, when trying to convey the tone he was looking for, Hitch remarked, “Mr. Williams, murder can be fun.”

We’ll keep our tongues firmly in cheek as the corpses pile up. It’s an hour of arch harpsichords this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

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 – ALL NEW! – 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/

January 10, 2025

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