Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Lord Berners

Ballets Russes’ Lost English Composers

Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).

Less well known is the fact that two Englishmen were also approached.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll listen to works by Constant Lambert and Lord Berners – both men so diverse in their interests, and possessing such outsized personalities, it isn’t really possible to do justice to either in the time allotted.

Lambert was a brilliant polymath. In addition to his considerable talents as a composer, he was a conductor, arranger, and writer, as well as the lover of Margot Fonteyn. Alas, alcoholism and workaholism conspired with undiagnosed diabetes to hasten his demise at the age of 45.

His ballet, “Romeo and Juliet,” presented as a play-within-a-play, turns Shakespeare’s tragedy of star-crossed lovers on its head, with the leads falling hard in a backstage romance with happier results. Lambert would go on to greater things, but the ballet is undeniably an impressive piece of work for a 20 year-old.

Similarly, Lord Berners’ interests lay all over the place, but his was a much more relaxed character. Unfailingly productive as a composer, a painter, and a writer, nonetheless he never lost sight of the fact that life would be his magnum opus. And Berners lived well.

Furthermore, his fortune ensured that he would never be taken to task for any of his whimsical behavior. This included having a 140-foot folly tower constructed on his estate (partly to annoy the neighbors) and keeping a horse and a giraffe to invite to his indoor and outdoor tea parties.

Berners wrote novels, painted portraits (always sure to include a moustache, whether the sitter had one or not), and composed a respectable amount of music, especially for the ballet.

For the Ballets Russes, he wrote “The Triumph of Neptune,” which became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham. Sacheverell Sitwell provided the scenario, which concerns a sailor who is shipwrecked en route to Fairyland, and George Balanchine supplied the choreography.

That’s a heady mix of hornpipes and pas de deux. I hope you’ll join me for “England à la Russe,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache

May 17, 2020
Late Summer Sounds: Women Composers & More

As we continue to savor this precious late-summer’s day, here’s what I’ve got planned musically – as if, in my hubris, there is anything I can do to enhance an already-perfect afternoon.

I’ll continue to highlight the contributions of women composers, during this month in which we celebrate the bicentennial of Clara Schumann. To this end, we’ll hear a suite from “La liberazione di Ruggiero” by Francesca Caccini, on her birthday. This was the first opera composed by a woman and probably the first by an Italian to be performed abroad.

It’s also the anniversary of the births of the great English eccentric and polymath Lord Berners and the Australian composer Arthur Benjamin. Benjamin wrote his most popular piece, “Jamaican Rumba,” for the duo-piano team of Joan and Valerie Trimble. It makes sense, then, to also program Joan’s irresistible “Suite for Strings.”

As if all that weren’t enough, I’ll risk gilding the lily with the inclusion of a charming faux-Baroque dance suite, the conveniently titled “The Nobility of Women,” by Philadelphia composer Kile Smith.

At 6:00, it’s another “Music from Marlboro.” This week, we’ll enjoy three quirky quartets by Mozart, Weber, and Bernard Garfield, as always in performances from the archive of the legendary Marlboro Music Festival.

Tap your toes and take your quartets in the threes. There’s nothing unusual in that, is there? Help yourself to some more tea, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: A classic Berners tea party (note the horse)

September 18, 2019
Ballets Russes Treasures on The Classical Network

Serge Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, commissioned some of the most enduring ballet scores of the 20th century, from such composers as Claude Debussy (“Jeux”), Maurice Ravel (“Daphnis and Chloe”), Manuel de Falla (“The Three-Cornered Hat”), and especially Igor Stravinsky (“The Firebird,” “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring”).

This afternoon on The Classical Network, we’ll have a chance to enjoy some of the lesser-known fruits of this partnership, including “Narcisse et Echo” by Nikolai Tcherepnin – written one year before “Daphnis,” though with some striking similarities – and the complete ballet “The Triumph of Neptune” – one of only two works composed for the company by an English composer, in this case Lord Berners. The suite, not exactly overplayed, was a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham (he recorded it several times), but the complete ballet is never done. We’ll also hear Richard Strauss’ music for the bombastic biblical spectacle “Josephslegende” (“The Legend of Joseph”) in its entirety.

First, on today’s Noontime Concert, it’s music for voice and viol, courtesy of Gotham Early Music Scene, or GEMS. Mezzo-soprano Ashley Mulcahy and viola da gambist James Perretta of the duo Lyracle will present works for this distinctive combination from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

These performances were captured at GEMS’ Midtown Concerts series, held at the chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Church, 325 Park Avenue, in New York City. Free concerts take place at St. Bart’s on Thursdays at 1:15 p.m. For more information, visit GEMS’ website, gemsny.org, and click on the events calendar.

Join me for a mix of GEMS and flawed diamonds from the Ballets Russes, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

IMAGE: Potiphar’s wife got it goin’ on!

June 4, 2019
Lord Berners: Eccentric Genius and Musical Wit

He kept a clavichord in the back seat of his Rolls Royce. A pet giraffe roamed the grounds of his estate. He invited a horse to his indoor tea parties. He constructed a 100-foot folly tower, “just to annoy the neighbors.”

Today is the birthday of Gerald Hugh Thyrwitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (1883-1950), whose enduring reputation is as one of England’s great eccentrics. More than likely, he was perfectly sane, as sane as you or I, but that sanity was leavened by a highly cultivated sense of the absurd.

A multitalented individual, Berners’ fortune allowed him the luxury to indulge his whims and enthusiasms. He wrote wry and entertaining books, he became a painter (he included moustaches in his portraits, whether the sitter had one or not), and he composed some thoroughly delightful music.

His most famous work is “The Triumph of Neptune,” one of only two ballets commissioned from English composers by the Ballets Russes. The work became a great favorite of Sir Thomas Beecham, who made multiple recordings of it.

I hope you’ll join me for music by Lord Berners. His will be among the birthday anniversaries we’ll observe today, between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Berners, no doubt contemplating the placement of a moustache

September 18, 2017
Water Spirits in Music Rusalka Week

There have been innumerable pieces of music written about water spirits – sirens, naiads, lorelei, undines, mermaids and melusinas. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll sample just a couple of these for Rusalka Week.

In Slavic mythology, a rusalka is a spirit that dwells at the bottom of a river or lake. She lures unsuspecting men with her song, invariably resulting in a watery doom. Rusalki are never more dangerous than in early June, when the spirits roam free.

Rusalka Week plays a role in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, “May Night,” drawn from Gogol’s collection, “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.” Alexander Dargomizhsky’s opera, “Rusalka,” is based on a dramatic poem by Pushkin. And the best known of the bunch, Dvorak’s “Rusalka,” was inspired by Czech fairy tales of Karel Jaromir Erben and Bozena Nemcova.

Of course, we won’t be listening to any of these. (We’ve treated Rimsky and Dargomizhsky in the past.) Instead, we’ll have a flute sonata from 1882, by Carl Reinecke, which bears the subtitle “Undine,” an allusion to a novella by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, which was very popular among the Romantics. Fouqué’s “Undine” tells the tale of a water spirit who marries a knight in order to gain a soul.

Then we’ll hear the complete ballet, “Les Sirènes,” from 1946, by Lord Berners. Berners, notorious for his sense of the absurd (a horse was a regular guest at his indoor tea parties) was a talented composer, writer and painter. “Les Sirènes,” after a scenario by Frederick Ashton, features mermaids combing their hair and singing on rocks at a seaside resort, where sirens of another sort behave coquettishly on shore.

I hope you’ll join me – you shouldn’t be out wandering during Rusalka Week anyway – for “Come on in, the Water’s Fine,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

I notice Dargomizhky’s “Rusalka” will be performed at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, as part of a Russian Opera Workshop, August 1-3. More information here:

http://www.russianoperaworkshop.com/

(Painting by Anna Vinogradova)

June 4, 2017

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS