This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s a working weekend, as we salute the laborer for Labor Day.
Nikolai Medtner, classmate and friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, wrote an awful lot of music for the piano. Alas, comparatively little of it is heard with any frequency. Pianists are said to adore his music, but for those in charge of concert venues the composer remains a tough sell. Medtner’s curiously titled triptych, “Three Hymns in Praise of Toil,” from 1926-27, consists of three movements: “Hymn Before Work,” “At the Anvil,” and “Hymn After Work.”
Manuel Rosenthal’s original compositions have been eclipsed by his arrangements for the runaway success, “Gaité Parisienne.” Rosenthal wrote music for the stage, orchestral pieces, pieces for voice and chorus, and instrumental works, but none of them have attained anywhere near the recognition of his Offenbach ballet, on which his name, if it appears at all, does so in rather small print. He did enjoy a successful career as one of France’s most prominent conductors. Interestingly, he was also the third and last pupil of Maurice Ravel.
We’ll hear Rosenthal’s “Les petits métiers” (“The Little Trades”), from 1933, ten deft orchestral sketches, including “The Farrier,” “The Herbalist,” “The Puppeteer,” “The Night-Watchman,” “The Postman Déodat,” “The Barber,” “The Cornet-seller,” “The Grinder,” “The Nanny,” and “The Little Telegraph-Boy.” If you don’t know what a farrier is, it’s a specialist in equine foot care!
According to the composer, “In this score, I have put my memories of the urchin I once was in the streets of Paris. They were full of songs of the trades-people, glazier, knife-grinder and so on. But I did not forget the wet-nurses who fed the new-born children of richer families, the soldiers or the little telegraph-boys, urchins of 12 or 13 years-old, who carried telegrams by bicycle. In short, all those little trades that favored exchange between people and contributed to a very French and very cheerful atmosphere.”
Speaking of horse feet, we’ll also enjoy a brief part-song by Gustav Holst, called “The Song of the Blacksmith,” a folk song arrangement from 1917. Holst later included the melody in his Second Suite in F for military band, with a lively part for anvil!
Finally, American composer John Alden Carpenter’s ballet “Skyscrapers,” from 1924, is set against the backdrop of a big city, with workmen in overalls exerting themselves amidst the haste and confusion of urban life. A whistle blows. There’s a side trip to an amusement park, with suggestions of carousels and raucous dance bands. These are interrupted, briefly, by a flashback to the idea of work, the workmen swinging their hammers and preparing to rivet. Then a reversion to play, with sailors, flappers and midway types performing a succession of colorful dances. The whistle blows again, and the laborers are summoned back to the job at hand.
Pull up a girder and get out your Stanley thermoses. I’ll be doing the heavy lifting as we punch the clock for Labor Day with “Labor Intensive” 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 the Trenton-Princeton area. Here are the respective air-times of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)
Stream them here!
