Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Mieczyslaw Karlowicz

Misty for Mennin

It’s a near certainty that I won’t be able to make this concert on Saturday night, but if you’ll be in New York City and you are interested in unusual and worthwhile repertoire, it’s possible I could live vicariously through you. It’s agonizing to me to have to miss not only the Symphony No. 5 by American composer (and one-time Juilliard president) Peter Mennin, but also the lovely, late-Romantic Violin Concerto by Mieczyslaw Karlowicz. (Rachel Lee Priday will be the soloist.)

The program will open with Giacomo Puccini’s “Capriccio sinfonico.” That’s the student piece he cannibalized for “La bohème.” If you know your Puccini, you will recognize it.

The Mennin is not performed often enough and the Karlowicz is rarely-heard on these shores. You could attend concerts for decades, as I have, and never encounter either one in performance. It is, however, characteristic programming for the New York Repertory Orchestra, whose music director is David Leibowitz.

The programs are always intriguingly and intelligently put together. Sadly, I always seem to have a conflict. (I was bummed to miss their LAST concert, which included the Symphony No. 4 by Ruth Gipps.) TICKETS ARE FREE, with a suggested $15 donation.

So if you’re interested in enjoying some attractive, well-crafted music that for some inexplicable reason has never really gained a toehold in the standard repertoire, hie thee to the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 West 46th St., between 6th & 7th Avenues, this Saturday at 8:00 p.m. – and taunt me with how fabulous it was to hear this concert live!

More information at the link

https://www.nyro.org/index.html

Rehearsing Mennin

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3285024335012633

———

PHOTO: An eerie Octo-Mennin, courtesy of Gordon Parks

November 20, 2025
Polish Composers Bloom on The Lost Chord

Poland is in bloom! This Saturday on “The Lost Chord,” find refreshment in musical discoveries by four Polish composers.

We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Aleksander Tansman. Tansman spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.

Hyper-romantic Mieczyslaw Karlowicz lived his life at such a heightened emotional pitch that he was perhaps fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.

On a lighter note, we’ll enjoy choral music by Andrzej Koszewski – his “Kaszuby Suite,” steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland – and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojciech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”

It’s a flowering of Polish music on “Poland Spring,” 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 EASTERN)

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

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

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

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 27, 2024
Polish Music’s Gloom and Romance

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” polish up on your Polish music with works by Mieczyslaw Karlowicz and Emil Mlynarski.

Karlowicz, by all accounts one of the gloomiest of composers, embraced an outlook and philosophy that might well be described as pessimism leavened with pantheism. In this melancholy world, all love is unfulfilled or doomed, all existence leads to tragedy and destruction. The only place the composer seemed to find solace was in his beloved Tatras. He once noted, “Atop a high mountain, I become one with the surrounding space. I cease to feel individual. I can feel the mighty, everlasting breath of eternal being.”

It is perhaps a kind of poetic justice that a life spent cultivating suicidal despair, and raising it to a level of high art, would be cut short, when Karlowicz was killed in an avalanche in 1909, aged only 32 years – a most fitting end for an orophile with fatalistic tendencies.

On the eve of Valentine’s Day’s, we’ll hear one of the six symphonic poems upon which Karlowicz’s reputation, in large part, is based. “Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim,” inspired by a painting of Stanislaw Bergmann, evokes a tale of forbidden love between brother and sister, ending in inevitable tragedy.

Then it’s romance of different sort, with a violin concerto by Mlynarski.

Mlynarski was recognized both at home and abroad as a staunch champion of Polish musical causes. He directed the Warsaw Opera and spearheaded the drive to build Warsaw Philharmonic Hall. He conducted festivals of Polish music in Paris, commissioned Sir Edward Elgar to write “Polonia” for a wartime Polish Relief Concert, and conducted the world premiere of Karol Szymanowski’s opera “King Roger.” He was, in fact, voted Poland’s most popular conductor. (Parenthetically, he also became the father-in-law of Artur Rubinstein.)

Among his other achievements, he toured with the London Symphony Orchestra, became permanent conductor of the Scottish National Orchestra, shared concerts with Sir Thomas Beecham, and for a time was dean of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

He was also an outstanding violinist. He studied with Leopold Auer, toured widely, and won a major composition award with his First Violin Concerto.

Violinist Nigel Kennedy first encountered his music when he was handed a tape of Mlynarski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 by an anonymous Polish fan following a concert. Kennedy went on to make his own recording of the work. I think you’ll agree, it’s a very beautiful discovery.

I hope you’ll join me in dipping into the archive for an hour of Polish music, on “Pole Vault,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org

PHOTO: Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, man of destiny

February 13, 2022
Discover Polish Composers on The Lost Chord

Poland is in bloom! This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” find refreshment in musical discoveries by four Polish composers.

We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Aleksander Tansman. Tansman spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.

Hyper-romantic Mieczyslaw Karlowicz lived his life at such a heightened emotional pitch that he was perhaps fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.

On a lighter note, we’ll enjoy choral music by Andrzej Koszewski –
his “Kaszuby Suite,” steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland – and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojiech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”

It’s a flowering of Polish music on “Poland Spring.” I hope you’ll join me, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

May 2, 2021
Polish Music Hike Vistula Sounds Lost Chord

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we go hiking in the Tatras and drifting down the Vistula, as we enjoy an hour of musical discoveries from Poland.

We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Aleksander Tansman, who spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.

Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was one of those hyper-romantic figures whose emotional life was lived at such a high pitch that he seemed fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.

We’ll round out the hour with choral music by Andrzej Koszewski – his “Kaszuby Suite” – steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland, and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojiech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”

I hope you’ll join me for “Poland Spring” – refreshing musical discoveries from Poland – tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

June 7, 2015

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