Anyone else in Eastern Pennsylvania or Central Jersey experience “Close Encounters” skies last night? There had been severe thunderstorm warnings for the Princeton area, but beyond some ominous rumblings and darkening skies, there wasn’t much to show for it. It did get awfully dark.
Then shortly after 8:00, a strange orange glow infused my living space. I went outside and gazed straight up, and the strangest clouds were hovering over the building and billowing toward the north. It was like they were upside down, pregnant with foreboding, about to give birth to a funnel cloud or unveil a Spielbergian mothership. I never saw anything like it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the phone with me at the moment, and by the time I thought to run in and grab it, the formation had begun to change. But as I rounded the building was able to get some shots.
Not the same as being there, of course, and these clouds were nowhere near as uncanny as those that loomed directly overhead. If ever I were going to be abducted by alien forces, yesterday evening would have been it.
Thanks, New Jersey Festival Orchestra and conductor David Wroe, for a glorious performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, presented last night in the acoustically-impressive St. Helen’s Church in Westfield, NJ. You did RVW proud!
It was also my great pleasure to meet Facebook friend Jim Barclay Jr., who, like me, traveled a little over an hour to get there. RVW devotees unite!
Two further area performances of this symphony coming up – astonishing as, to my knowledge, it has not been performed in the Philadelphia area since André Previn led the Curtis Orchestra in 1995.
On November 4 at 7:30 p.m., the Southeastern Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra will perform the Fifth at Calvary Baptist Church, 1380 S. Valley Forge Road, in Lansdale, PA – again, for me about an hour’s drive. Also on the program will be Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.” Two of my favorite pieces in English music! Allan R. Scott will conduct.
The Main Line Symphony Orchestra will perform the Fifth on November 17 at 8 p.m., also about an hour away, at Valley Forge Middle School in Wayne, PA. The latter concert is especially attractive in that the Symphony No. 2 by Vaughan Williams pupil Ruth Gipps will also be performed. Ernest Bloch’s “Schelomo” will feature as soloist Philadelphia Orchestra cellist Yumi Kendall. The conductor will be Don Liuzzi, also of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Prior to yesterday, I only ever heard the Fifth in concert twice! (The other time was with Leon Botstein conducting at a Bard Music Festival devoted to Sibelius in 2011.)
As always, I ask everyone to keep me apprised of Vaughan Williams performances on the East Coast. To hear the Fifth Symphony live, as it was played last night, can be transformative. It’s a hard heart indeed that can resist its third movement Romanza, but the whole thing is a wonder.
PHOTO: Vaughan Williams conducting the Fifth Symphony at Royal Albert Hall
Snow has a way of making poets of us all, it imprints us so, when we are young.
As I watch the the birds huddling around their feeders, piled high with extra food, replenished for them late yesterday, my thoughts wander back to the monumental snowfalls of my elementary and high school years, while growing up in eastern Pennsylvania. It wasn’t unusual then that schools would close for two or even three days, the district was so vast. Open fields and farmland were like carnival grounds for the elements. The drifting snow was such that buses never left the grounds.
I would stay up late, watching the snow fall, from my bedroom, in the fervent hope that there would be enough accumulation that I wouldn’t have to be up and out the door in a few hours. Homeroom began at 7:15, and by high school I had given up on the drama of taking the bus, opting instead to walk the five miles (by car), which I was able to shave by taking a shortcut through the woods. I lay there for a long while listening to the sounds of chains on tires, as plows and repurposed garbage trucks made their rounds.
Of course, in the morning I would be up anyway, listening with my mother and sister for the closings. Once school was officially cancelled, I embarked, with a stomach full of Cream of Wheat, on a long day of shoveling, sledding, and snowball fights. I’d stagger back home, half-frozen, at midday, with blue spots flashing before my eyes and snow caked to my socks, to regroup over toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, lovingly served up by Mom.
Then I’d be out the door again until suppertime. In the evening, the snow cast a wondrous luminosity, which continued uncannily into the night. By then, friends who lived at respectable distances would have found their way to one another’s houses. The pelting of snowplows ensued.
There were no snow blowers back then. Only eerie silence, punctuated by the distant squeal of children, perhaps the scrape of a shovel, or an occasional spinning tire. After a good snow there would be such embankments, you would have thought we were living in Lillehammer. All very conducive to the construction of ice fortresses, which we connected through a network of passageways.
How many years has it been since I’ve barreled down a nearly-vertical plane on a sled? Lain with my back against the snow? Walked in the woods and experienced a fairy world transformation?
So much laughter, adventure, and romance in those days. Where are the snows of yesteryear?
Tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. marks the end of our fiscal year. Under ordinary circumstances, most businesses are humming along in their mid-year groove, and the average worker is thinking about summer vacation. For non-profit organizations such as WWFM, this really is it. Listener contributions at this time have a powerful impact on what next year’s budget will look like and how much grant money we are able to secure.
I know, as a devoted listener who is passionate about classical music, you want us to succeed, but I also know you are deeply invested in what we do – the specialty shows, the live concerts, the artist interviews, the lovingly curated playlists, and the symbiotic relationship with the local arts community. WWFM, as a medium, is in many ways a hub for the musical arts in central New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. That hub is only as vital as we can make it.
Now more than ever, musical artists struggle for exposure, as they seek fresh solutions to unforeseen challenges. Equally, we all crave a sense of connection – an environment of solace and normalcy, as we look to affirm our collective humanity in time of crisis. Maintaining great music on the radio, and keeping it accessible to everyone, not only provides an invaluable platform for musicians, it also serves to enrich our inner lives, and potentially those of anyone out there capable of being touched by it.
We understand that times are tough, and that world events have had an unforeseen impact on just about everyone, but if you are in a position to do so, please do whatever you can so that the hub stays strong. Don’t let the herd run dry.
You provide the milk, and we’ll supply the goodies. Make your donation today at 1-888-232-1212, or contribute online at wwfm.org. Thank you, sincerely, for your support of WWFM – The Classical Network!
Good lord! There was an attempted coup in Turkey now, with hundreds dead? Medical science seems to be able to keep ahead of the pandemics, yet we just keep killing one another off.
Allegedly the coup’s mastermind has been operating out of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania – just 25 minutes north of the town of my birth. What happened to soda fountains, five-and-dimes, farmers markets and drive-in movies? Now they’re overthrowing governments? We’ve come a long way from Mayberry, alas.
