Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Mozart

Happy Birthday Mozart Genius of Music

Today is the birthday of Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. I suppose the last name is enough to give it away, but I am speaking, of course, of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart was born in 1756; he died in 1791. In less than 35 years (he composed his first music around the age of 5), he created over 600 works, producing astonishing masterpieces in every category. Even so, he seldom had two thaler to rub together. Haydn wrote that “posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years.” Posterity is still waiting.

January 27, 2016
Animals Sing Mozart Better Than You

Put in your earbuds. Classic FM has compiled video footage of “six animals who can sing Mozart’s Queen of the Night aria better than you.”

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/mozart/queen-of-the-night-animals/#878kVxg1bckZEybH.97

September 14, 2015
Princeton Festival’s Incendiary Figaro

Its source material was considered incendiary in its day. Performances of the original play were banned in France for its volatile political notions. It was barred from Austrian stages for its alleged licentious content.

When Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, proposed to Emperor Joseph II that they would like to turn it into an opera, they must have done some fast talking. The Emperor gave his blessing (on the condition that they tone down the revolutionary tendencies), and the result was one of the greatest operas ever written.

This weekend, the Princeton Festival will unveil its production of “The Marriage of Figaro,” which will run for three performances at McCarter Theatre Center: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and 6/21 & 6/28 at 3 p.m. The festival’s artistic director Richard Tang Yuk will conduct.

This year’s musical theatre offering, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” will begin its run of ten performances at Matthews Acting Studio, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, beginning today at 8 p.m.

Also this weekend, the final round of the piano competition will take place on Sunday at 3 p.m., at the Clark Music Center, The Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville.

Other highlights of the festival include upcoming concerts by Concordia Chamber Players (6/20), the Nashville guitar duo Striking Matches (6/21), the Festival Baroque Orchestra (6/24), pianist Fei-Fei Dong (6/26), and the Indian music and dance group Pradhanica (6/27). Related lectures and events pepper the schedule.

The Princeton Festival runs through June 28. For more information, look online at http://www.princetonfestival.org.

You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/06/classical_music_princeton_fest_1.html

PHOTO: Super-salesmen Mozart and Da Ponte

June 12, 2015
Robert Stallman on The Lost Chord

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” I’ll be joined by flutist Robert Stallman, who will talk about his new album, “Cosi fan Flauti,” recently issued on the Bogner’s Café label.

On top of a lifetime of experience as a performer, Stallman (a former pupil of Jean-Pierre Rampal) has an unusually intimate knowledge of the scores of Mozart, having transcribed some 50 of his works for other combinations involving the flute. A superb album of “new” quintets for flute and strings, derived from some of the piano sonatas, was met with great acclaim upon its release in 2006, in large part for Stallman’s idiomatic grasp of the composer’s method. He went on to perform the same service for Franz Schubert, having arranged some 40 of his works, several of which were issued on another album in 2009.

The centerpiece of his most recent issue is a new “Sinfonia Concertante” for two flutes and orchestra, based on a two-piano sonata, which Stallman transcribed and then had his friend, the English composer Stephen Dodgson (a descendent of Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), orchestrate. We’ll be listening to this reimagining of Mozart’s original, as well as Dodgson’s own Concerto for Flute and Strings, which was dedicated to Stallman and recorded for the Biddulph Recordings label, back in 1994.

Also on the new album is Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp (with Stallman’s own cadenzas) and two selections from the “Haffner Serenade” performed on the flute.

I hope you’ll join me for “Cosi fan Flauti,” 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 http://www.wwfm.org.

April 11, 2015
Why I (Sometimes) Hate Mozart

Dear Wolfgang,

Sorry for being such an idiot. I confess to feeling total disappointment when your music is listed on a concert program or announced on the radio, yet when I actually listen to it, it almost always yields rewards.

You wrote my favorite opera of all time (“The Marriage of Figaro”). You wrote the favorite opera of my youth (“The Magic Flute”). You wrote a piece I could not stop listening to when I was in high school (“Eine kleine Nachtmusik”). There are pieces you wrote that I adore. So why do I bear so much prejudice against you?

Maybe it’s for the same reason some people hate John Williams or Stephen King. If it’s popular, it can’t be good, right? Right?

(Please note: I adore John Williams.)

Happy birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).

With a shout-out to poor Edouard Lalo (1823-1892)!

Very truly yours,

R

January 27, 2015

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