Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Leonard Bernstein

Bernstein’s 99th Birthday Celebration on WPRB

August 25th (Friday) marks the 99th anniversary of the birth of Leonard Bernstein. Join me this Thursday morning on WPRB as we hop aboard the Bernstein Centenary Bandwagon, kicking off an inevitable two-year celebration of his genius as composer, pianist and, of course, conductor.

Along the way, we’ll salute The American Boychoir, the Princeton-based organization that stunned everyone on August 15th by shutting down its school, effective immediately, after 79 years. The choir will perform Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms.” We’ll also hear Bernstein’s last major work, “Arias and Barcarolles,” in its original (and better) version for mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano four hands. The late Barbara Cook will sing selections from “Candide.” In addition, there will be a full roster of great orchestral recordings from all across the repertoire.

I hope you’ll join me in raising a stein to Leonard Bernstein – surveying 40 years worth of his recordings – this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’ll get all liquored up for Lenny, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: “I never drink… beer.”

August 23, 2017
Barbra Streisand’s Classical Experiment

My mom was a big Barbra Streisand fan. I remember this album, which even then seemed to come out of left field. (It was recorded in 1973, but not release until 1976.) But beauty is beauty. “Classical Barbra” received mixed reviews, with some hailing it as “rare and risky” and others deriding it as “hideous camp.” It did receive stamps of approval from Leonard Bernstein and Glenn Gould.

I’m not surprised that Streisand would be attracted to this music and want to share it with her fans. Even if it were the worst-selling Streisand album of all time (I don’t know; it achieved Gold Record status), it probably reached more listeners than the best-selling Debussy album. Good on her. Not everything is idiomatic, but this chanson is seductive enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rnjl-s8dPs

Streisand is 75 today. Happy birthday.

April 24, 2017
Presidents Day Music on WPRB

I realize that the mere mention of “president” these days is the equivalent of dropping a torch on a powder keg. Nevertheless, tomorrow morning on WPRB, I will go forward with my annual observance of Presidents Day. I trust everyone is adult enough to celebrate our democracy with music inspired by Washington, Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Chester Alan Arthur, JFK, and Richard Nixon without having a meltdown in the comments section.

New this year will be “A White House Cantata,” derived from Leonard Bernstein’s final, failed musical (written with Alan Jay Lerner), “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” which flopped loudly in 1976. The work parallels a century’s worth of American presidents, from Washington through Theodore Roosevelt, with commentary from African American White House servants. After the show folded, the composer recycled several of the numbers in his later concert works. (And yes, I am aware that Adams was the first president to occupy the White House.)

Join me as we follow our precedent of being presidential, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be practicing arithmetic on the back of a coal shovel and hurling silver dollars across the Potomac, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 16, 2017
Aaron Copland’s Jazz Concerto Birthday

He was America’s foremost composer of “art music.” What he was not was George Gershwin.

Join me this afternoon, as we celebrate the birthday of Aaron Copland with, among other things, his Piano Concerto, composed in 1926. Copland was still feeling his way toward his “populist period” (which began with “El Salón México,” not given its premiere until ten years later), when he wrote this concerto, which spikes 1920s modernism with American jazz.

The composer was the soloist in the work’s first performance, which featured the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. The critics panned it, but Copland’s mother beamed with pride. The composer wrote, “I was delighted when Ma said it was her proudest moment and that my playing in the Concerto made all those music lessons worthwhile!”

It retained its reputation as a shocker until 1947, when Leonard Bernstein revived it with Leo Smith as the soloist, and it struggles still, even next to Copland’s own Clarinet Concerto. In the meantime, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” (from 1924) has never been out of the repertoire.

Hear this underexposed work today, between 4 and 7:00 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

November 14, 2016
Labor Day Music for the Working Class

Who wants to work today? You, you, and you!

Climb aboard this morning and earn your keep, as we listen to music about labor and for the worker in anticipation of Labor Day. This will be an international affair, with Prokofiev’s “Le pas d’acier” (“The Steel Step”), a love story set in a factory, Manuel Rosenthal’s “Les petits métiers” (“The Small Trades”), and Nikolai Medtner’s “Three Hymns in Praise of Toil.”

There will also be two Danish symphonies: Rued Laangaard’s Symphony No. 14, “The Morning,” which culminates in the start of the work day, and Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, “Sinfonia espansiva,” concluding with “a hymn to work and the healthy activity of living.”

Naturally, it being an American holiday, we’ll have plenty of music by our native composers, as well, including the construction worker ballet “Skyscrapers” by John Alden Carpenter, Frederick Shepherd Converse’s tone poem about automobile manufacturing, “Flivver Ten Million,” and a suite from that quintessential film about violent longshoremen, “On the Waterfront,” by Leonard Bernstein.

We’ll be busting our hump for the man, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I coulda been somebody; I coulda been a contender, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 1, 2016

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