Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Leopold Stokowski

Fikret Amirov Rediscovered Azerbaijani Composer

Collectors of a certain vintage (and musical archaeologists who haunt used record shops) may remember Leopold Stokowski’s recording, with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, of “Azerbaijan Mugam” by Fikret Amirov. Its native title is “Kyurdi Ovshari.”

That language barrier may in part explain Amirov’s relative obscurity in the West. Even taking into account the more accessible title, what exactly is a mugam? It turns out it is a highly rhapsodic and improvisatory form, alternating between song and dance episodes, characteristic of Azeri music. But you see what I mean.

It is that very exoticism which makes Amirov difficult to market, yet at the same time, it is what makes him so interesting. In these multicultural times, when such a high-profile musician as Yo-Yo Ma traverses the Silk Road, perhaps Amirov’s day has finally come.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two works by Amirov (1922-1984), winner of the Stalin Prize in 1949, honored as People’s Artist of the USSR in 1965, and recipient of the USSR State Prize in 1980.

His “Six Pieces for Flute and Piano,” of 1970, consists of “Song of the Aushug,” “Lullaby,” “Dance,” “In the Azerbaijan Mountains,” “At the Spring,” and “Nocturne.” If Amirov’s music at times reminds one of Khachaturian, one need only remember that Azerbaijan shares a border with Armenia. Without getting too much into politics, relations between the two countries are tense, to say the least. His music also bears the influence of other neighboring and nearby countries – Turkey, Russia, and Iran.

This is something to bear in mind when approaching his full-length ballet, “The Arabian Nights.” The work, given its premiere in 1979, is one of the rare adaptations to come out of a region which gave us the original stories that make up “A Thousand and One Nights.” The world famous adventures of Sinbad, Ali Baba and Aladdin are enshrined in these tales, and each of them make an appearance in the ballet’s second act.

Tonight, however, we’ll hear selections from Act I, which sets up the framing device, the unfaithful wife Nurida, the Sultan’s declaration of vengeance against all womankind, and the introduction of Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter who enthralls the Sultan with her wit and creativity and finally restores his ability to love.

I hope you’ll join me for “Azerbaijani Come Lately” – late works by Fikret Amirov – this Sunday night at 10 EDT, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

Stokowski conducts “Azerbaijan Mugam”:

June 5, 2016
Ives’ Symphony No. 4: Stokowski’s 1965 Premiere

It was on this date in 1965 that Leopold Stokowski gave the world premiere of Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4. The performance took place at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Schola Cantorum of New York. At the time, the work’s complex, kaleidoscopic tempos and layered, shifting meters required multiple conductors, and Stokowski enlisted the aid of David Katz and a young Jose Serebrier (pictured).

The piece was composed between 1910 and the mid-1920s. Given the source, it’s hardly surprising that the music was decades ahead of its time. The first two movements had been performed by members of the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Eugene Goossens in 1927. This was the only occasion on which Ives would hear any of the music from the Fourth Symphony performed live by an orchestra. The composer died in 1954.

Bernard Herrmann conducted an arrangement of the lovely third movement, the simplest and most conservative of the four (why, then, the need for an arrangement?), in 1933. The music as Ives wrote it was not heard until the complete performance in 1965.

The composer’s biographer, Jan Swafford, describes the work as “Ives’ climactic masterpiece.”

Stokowski recorded the symphony a few days after the premiere and led a televised studio performance, which can be seen here:

Stokey kicks off twenty minutes of spoken introductory material (including commentary from producer John McClure) at the 4:30 mark. The symphony proper begins 25 minutes in.

When’s the last time you saw anything like this on television?

April 26, 2016
Stokowski Two Sides of a Conducting Legend

Two faces of Leopold Stokowski:

First, from the 1947 potboiler “Carnegie Hall,” which contrives to string together appearances by some of the greatest classical music talent of the day (including Jascha Heiftez, Gregor Piatigorsky, Arthur Rubinstein, Rise Stevens, Ezio Pinza, Bruno Walter and Fritz Reiner) using the flimsiest and hokiest of plots (renegade young pianist scandalizes – and ultimately makes good – with his new jazz concerto).

Stokowski provides the musical high point of the picture, with the director, low budget maestro Edgar G. Ulmer – who was a set designer on “Metropolis” and “M” – indulging in Expressionist tricks (low-angle camera set-ups and stark lighting) to accentuate Stoky’s majesty, to say nothing of his hair.

Second, Stokowski rehearsing the American Symphony Orchestra in 1968, at the age of 85. He still had ten years of conducting ahead of him. His talent, temperament – and hair – remain undiminished.

Happy birthday, Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977).

April 18, 2016
Varese’s Amériques Premiere Orchestra History

On this date in 1926, Leopold Stokowski conducted The Philadelphia Orchestra in the first performance of Edgard Varese’s “Amèriques.” With these two guys at the helm, what could possibly go wrong?

Here it is, conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee. The notorious siren makes its first appearance at the 2:30 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbPzNBvwnsM

Next season, Lyndon-Gee will guest conduct the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in music of Elgar and Nielsen.

April 9, 2016
William Grant Still American Composer

They say that still waters run deep.

William Grant Still, the so-called “Dean of Afro-American Composers,” composed a lot of attractive music, much of it informed by the black experience. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear Still’s delightful Symphony No. 2, subtitled “Song of a New Race,” and a more serious work fueled by racial considerations, “And They Lynched Him on a Tree,” for double-choir, narrator and orchestra.

Still, who lived from 1895-1978, emerged from unlikely circumstances – born in Woodville, Mississippi; raised in Little Rock, Arkansas – to become a major force in American music. Having abandoned a career in medicine for studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with George Whitefield Chadwick, Still was a “first” in many respects.

His Symphony No. 1, the “Afro-American Symphony,” was the first written by a black composer to be performed by a major orchestra (the New York Philharmonic). He was the first to be given the opportunity to conduct a major orchestra (the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at the Hollywood Bowl). His opera, “Troubled Island,” became the first to be produced by a major company (the New York City Opera). Another of his operas, “A Bayou Legend,” was the first to be performed on national television (as late as 1981). His works were performed internationally by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic.

Perhaps the least likely pupil of Edgard Varèse, he incorporated jazz and blues elements into his concert music. He cut his teeth writing arrangements for Paul Whiteman, W.C. Handy and Artie Shaw. According to Eubie Blake, one of Still’s improvisations in the pit band during Blake’s revue “Shuffle Along” became the basis for Gershwin’s hit tune “I Got Rhythm.” Still didn’t appear to be bitter about the appropriation (which Blake conceded was probably inadvertent), and in fact Still and Gershwin were on friendly terms and made it a point to attend performances of one another’s music.

Pay particular attention to the second movement of Still’s Symphony No. 2, first performed in 1936 by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and see if you agree that Gershwin would have killed to have composed its second movement.

We’ll follow that with a very different piece, Still’s choral ballad “And They Lynched Him on a Tree,” composed in 1940. The libretto is by the poet Katherine G.C. Biddle, the niece of Charlotte Mason, the so-called “Godmother of the Harlem Renaissance.” The work calls for a contralto soloist, as the mother of the victim, a “white chorus” to depict the mob, a “black chorus” to discover the lynching, a narrator, and a small orchestra. The composition is almost exactly contemporary with Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit.” It was given its first performance by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Artur Rodzinski.

There will be just a few minutes left at the end of the show, during which we’ll decompress with Still’s miniature “Summerland.”

I hope you’ll join me for “Still Runs Deep” – an hour of music by William Grant Still – this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

February 22, 2016

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