Classic Ross Amico

Tag: KWAX

Laughing Through Cold Season with Hoffnung Music

It may be cold and flu season, and the holidays may dish up, among other things, a banquet of contagion. But, as it’s said that laughter is the best medicine, this week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll laugh in the New Year with highlights from the notorious and uproarious Hoffnung Music Festival concerts.

Gerard Hoffnung was a boy when his family arrived in London, refugees from Nazi Germany. In his new home, he cultivated the persona of an English gentleman, though one with a decidedly impish bent. He attained celebrity through his work as a cartoonist, a sparkling panelist, and a public speaker. He was lauded as a brilliant improviser with a dry wit and a masterly sense of timing. He also played the tuba well enough that he was able to tackle the Vaughan Williams concerto.

Following a successful April Fool’s concert in 1956, Hoffnung embarked on the enterprise which, alongside his cartooning, ensured a kind of immortality – the first of the Hoffnung Music Festival concerts. The concerts brought together representatives of England’s finest musical talent to lampoon what, especially at the time, might have been perceived as a rather stodgy art form.

There would be three Hoffnung concerts in all. Alas, the third was presented posthumously. Hoffnung collapsed at his home in 1959, and died of a cerebral hemorrhage three days later, at the age of only 34. An untimely finish for a character who seemed his entire life to be a brilliant, fully-developed, middle-aged man, always at the peak of his form.

I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate Hoffnung’s whimsical legacy. We’ll hear Sir Malcolm Arnold’s “A Grand, Grand Overture,” for orchestra, organ, electric floor polisher, and three vacuum cleaners – the work was dedicated to President “Hoover” – and Franz Reizenstein’s “Concerto populare,” billed as “a piano concerto to end all piano concertos,” among others.

It’s a lighthearted playlist calculated to put a smile on your face and lend a boost to your spirits – to say nothing of your immune system. He who laughs last laughs best. So “Have a Ball,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 30, 2023
New Year’s Operetta & Light Music on KWAX

I hope you’ll join me on this Saturday morning, the last of 2023, for some uplifting music calculated to charm and to cheer, on an all-new episode of “Sweetness and Light.”

We’ll enjoy selections from operetta, including a concert overture on themes from Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow,” a duet from Oscar Straus’ “A Waltz Dream,” and the irresistible “Song of the Laugh,” an insert aria employed in Sidney Jones’ “The Geisha,” in a vintage recording, performed by Ukrainian soprano Claudia Novikova. Trust me, it will put a smile on your face!

In addition, we’ll have some variations on the familiar New Year’s melody “Auld Lang Syne” – one a playful multi-movement set in the styles of different composers by Franz Waxman (who wrote scores for such classic films as “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Sunset Boulevard,” and “The Nun’s Story”), conceived for an informal New Year’s Eve get-together with his neighbor, Jascha Heifetz, and friends; the other, an orchestral showpiece incorporating parodies of no less than 129 familiar melodies, by British Light Music master Ernest Tomlinson.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who enjoyed a successful run of reviving the operettas of Johann Strauss II, brought some of that same breezy Old World elegance to his own Hollywood film scores, proving that you can take the composer out of Vienna, but you can’t take Vienna out of the composer, as demonstrated in his “Flirtation Waltz” from the 1936 Errol Flynn classic “The Prince and the Pauper.”

I’ll be wishing you a sweet New Year this week on “Sweetness and Light.” Sweeten your morning and lighten your spirit by listening to it on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon, this morning at 11:00 Eastern Time (8:00 on the West Coast). Stream it effortlessly at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 30, 2023
Jules Verne Movie Music on KWAX Picture Perfect

This week on “Picture Perfect,” with the New Year only days away, we’ll greet the future with music from movies inspired by Jules Verne’s novels of science, progress, and adventure.

We’ll hear selections from “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” composed by Paul J. Smith; “In Search of the Castaways,” by William Alwyn; “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” by Bernard Herrmann; and “Around the World in 80 Days,” by Victor Young.

Of course, science and technology are all well and good for what they are, but there are times when the best solution is an expertly-wielded harpoon!

Your grit and resourcefulness are always welcome on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 29, 2023
Herzogenberg Friend of Brahms and Forgotten Composer

The composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900), born in Graz, studied in Vienna, where he became a lifelong friend of Johannes Brahms. Of course, being friends with Brahms was a complicated matter. In particular, the older composer was not very diplomatic in his assessment of Herzogenberg’s music. However, toward the end of his life, he grudgingly offered, “Herzogenberg is able to do more than any of the others.”

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have music by Brahms’ faintly-praised confidant.

In 1874, Herzogenberg co-founded the Leipzig Bach-Verein, which dedicated itself to the revival of all the Bach cantatas. He served as its music director for ten years. Following the death of his wife in 1892, he turned increasingly to the writing of sacred music. In particular, he composed music for services of a Lutheran church in Strasbourg, though he himself remained a Roman Catholic. His models for these pieces were, naturally, the oratorios and passions of Bach.

Three large-scale works of the period call for members of the congregation to participate in the singing of the chorales.

“Die Geburt Christi,” or “The Birth of Christ,” written in 1894, betrays the influence of composers admired by Herzogenberg. However, the work is not always as “Brahmsian” as one might expect. A prominent role is given to church hymns, with the inclusion of folk material and some familiar Christmas melodies.

We’ll hear selections from Parts One and Two – “The Promise” and “The Fulfillment” – and then, after a break, the whole of Part Three, “The Adoration.”

I hope you’ll join me for “German Shepherds,” Herzogenberg’s musical telling of the Nativity story, on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW, DEBUTING TODAY!! – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 23, 2023
Sweetness and Light Premiere on KWAX Radio

Don’t miss the world premiere broadcast of my new show, “Sweetness and Light,” this morning on KWAX!

Going forward, I’ll be adding a third show to my syndicated output, offering a weekly playlist of British Light Music, ballet, operetta, waltzes, marches, parlor music, and piano miniatures of a kind once familiar from Grandma’s piano bench – in short, undemanding fare calculated to charm and to cheer and to help you forget your worldly woes.

It’s all holiday-oriented this week, so why not give it a whirl. And then be sure to drop back later in the day, when I share selections from Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s oratorio “Die Geburt Christi” (“The Birth of Christ”) on “The Lost Chord.”

I’m dreaming of a light Christmas. Happy holidays to you!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast (the radio station of the University of Oregon), so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PHOTO: Dangling a carrot, deer ones, for “Sweetness and Light”

December 23, 2023

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