Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Philadelphia Orchestra

Philly Orchestra Farrenc Shines Beyond Beethoven

Very interesting program at The Philadelphia Orchestra this weekend. Naturally, all promotions emphasize Trifanov and Beethoven (after all, they want to get butts in the seats), but I would like to shower the entire organization with rose petals for allowing the bulk of the concert to be devoted to music by Lili Boulanger and especially Louise Farrenc.

If you’re unfamiliar with Farrenc, she was the only female professor at the Paris Conservatory in all of the 19th century. I have a preference for her Third Symphony, myself, but it was so good to be able to hear the Second performed live. It doesn’t always have to be Berlioz (her exact contemporary), for as much as I enjoy his music!

Yannick, please check out Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3. And more adventurous programming, please! I understand the importance of new commissions for women composers, but there is still also plenty of worthwhile music by historical women that right now can only be experienced through recordings.

The next time you have the urge to do Elgar, try your hand at Ethel Smyth. The overture to “The Wreckers” would make for a dynamic curtain-raiser. The “Serenade in D” is a symphony in all but name, with some pretty good tunes. If you prefer Czech, try Vítězslava Kaprálová. She inhabits a similar sound world to that of Martinu. And Poland’s Grazyna Bacewicz can stand toe-to-toe with just about any of the 20th century’s greatest composers.

For the present, thank you, Philadelphia, for performing Boulanger and Farrenc. Now there are more, and perhaps even greater, treasures to be mined.

As for the Beethoven concerto, of course the solo part held no terrors for Daniil Trifanov, the Rachmaninoff pianist du jour. But the orchestra also played with plenty of punch, under the muscular direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and bubbled over with dynamism to the driving timpani of Angela Zator Nelson.

The program is presented under the umbrella of the orchestra’s BeethovenNOW series. I’d be dismissive of the venture as a tired rehash of music that already gets raked over every year, all over the world, but if these musicians are energized by Beethoven the way they were on Thursday, then it will all probably be worth hearing, even by a jaded old bastard like myself. You can find more information at the orchestra’s website, philorch.org.

PLEASE NOTE: For remaining performances of this particular program, tonight at 8 p.m. and tomorrow at 2 p.m., Trifanov will swap out Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 for the Piano Concerto No. 5, the popular “Emperor.”

I am not able to access the review, since it’s paywalled, but if you already subscribe to the Philadelphia Inquirer, you can check out David Patrick Stearns’ impressions of the Thursday concert. From the headline, it looks as if he too was pleased to be able to hear Farrenc.

https://www.inquirer.com/arts/philadelphia-orchestra-beethoven-now-daniil-trifonov-yannick-20200131.html

February 1, 2020
Ormandy’s All-American Philadelphia Orchestra

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s one more trip to the well, with well-played works of American composers rendered by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Slake your thirst with selections from “Five Songs of William Blake” by Virgil Thomson, the Symphony No. 7 by Roy Harris, and “Four Squares of Philadelphia” by Louis Gesensway.

Gesensway was born in Latvia in 1906. A violin prodigy, he was one of the founders of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He came to Philadelphia at the age of 19, where he played under both Stokowski and Ormandy.

In his mid-20s, he took a leave of absence to study composition with Zoltán Kodály. “Four Squares of Philadelphia” was described by the composer as a “symphonic poem for large orchestra, narrator and street criers.”

The piece opens with a recitation of William Penn’s prayer, then continues with musical evocations of Washington Square (in early morning, during Colonial times, with street criers hawking their wares), Rittenhouse Square (on a bright and cheerful afternoon), Logan Square (with its fountains at dusk), and Franklin Square (at night, evocative of noisy bridge traffic, a side excursion into Chinatown, and musical interjections from the honky tonk joints located around the square in the 1950s).

Be there or be square. Eugene Ormandy serves up the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers. I hope you’ll join me for “All-American Ormandy III,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Statue of Penn, high atop the city he founded

December 1, 2019
Ormandy’s Lost American Music Recordings

It’s not so much that I am out of ideas, but it is mighty convenient that I have so much material left over from last week’s show. Even now, I run my eye down the stack of CDs with the warm satisfaction of an acquisitive magpie.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” it’s the second installment in what is shaping up to be a three-part series of Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in rarely-heard recordings of American music.

Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pa., not far from Philly, in 1910. He attended Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music and had his first orchestral work, the “School for Scandal Overture,” performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1931, when he was 21 years-old.

His “First Essay for Orchestra” was sent to Arturo Toscanini in the same mail as his “Adagio for Strings.” Toscanini performed both works with the NBC Symphony in 1938, but it was Eugene Ormandy who made the first recording of “Essay,” with the Philadelphians, in 1940.

Vincent Persichetti was born in Philadelphia in 1915, and he died there in 1987. In between, he attended Combs College of Music, the Curtis Institute (where he studied conducting with Fritz Reiner) and the Philadelphia Conservatory. He taught at Combs and the Philly Conservatory. Then he received an invitation from William Schuman (some of whose music we heard last week) to take up a professorship at Juilliard.

Persichetti was one of our great composers, but to this day he remains underappreciated, more respected than loved. His Symphony No 4 of 1951 must be one of his most immediately attractive works.

Finally, John Vincent may be the most undeservedly neglected composer in Ormandy’s entire discography. Ormandy described his recording of Vincent’s Symphony in D (“A Festival Piece in One Movement”) as “one of the best we have ever done,” and the piece itself as “one of the finest compositions created by an American composer in the past decade.” The 1954 work sounds at times like Sibelius gone to the rodeo, but my, is it good stuff!

I hope you’ll join me for “All-American Ormandy II.” Ormandy recommends a visit to the Barber (pictured), then convinces with the Vincents, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 24, 2019
Ormandy’s Lost American Legacy Rediscovered

Eugene Ormandy was born Jenő Blau in Budapest in 1899. In 1927, he became a naturalized American citizen and wound up directing the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years.

In that capacity, he championed much contemporary music and works by his adopted countrymen – a fact eclipsed by his reputation as a superb interpreter of the 19th century classics.

In fact, much of his American legacy has dropped out of print. In the late 1990s, Albany Records attempted to rectify the situation by reissuing some of Ormandy’s recordings of lesser-heard American music. The series only made it to three volumes, but each one of them is a treasure.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two selections from these invaluable anthologies. Both are by Pulitzer Prize winners whose music has sadly fallen out of fashion.

William Schuman was the very first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, in 1943, for his “Cantata No. 2, A Free Song.” At the height of his fame, he was also President of Lincoln Center. He was considered such an important figure in American culture, he was even brought on to “What’s My Line?” (Those were the days.)

We’ll hear Schuman’s “Credendum – Article of Faith,” composed in 1955. The work was written in response to the first ever commission by the U.S. government for a symphonic work.

Two years later, the Pulitzer was awarded to Norman Dello Joio, for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” His symphonic suite “Air Power” was adapted from 22 individual scores composed for the CBS television series about the history of aviation. The series ran from November 1956 through the spring of 1957. (Dello Joio would collect his prize in April.) The individual sections were used to underscore segments on the early days of flight, with their barnstormers and daredevils, air battles and war scenes.

I hope you’ll join me for these rarely-heard recordings of American music. Ormandy flies American, on “All-American Ormandy,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

William Schuman on “What’s My Line?” (1962):

“Air Power,” narrated by Walter Cronkite (1956):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKXKTh50USM

November 17, 2019
Ormandy’s Lost American Gems Barber Persichetti Vincent

It’s not so much that I am out of ideas, but it is mighty convenient that I had so much material left over from last week’s show, consisting of rarely-heard recordings of American music performed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” I reach for the already conveniently stacked CDs to cue up three more gems.

Samuel Barber was born in West Chester, Pa., not far from Philly, in 1910. He attended Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music and had his first orchestral work, the “School for Scandal Overture,” performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1931, when he was 21 years-old.

His “First Essay for Orchestra” was sent to Arturo Toscanini in the same mail as his “Adagio for Strings.” Toscanini performed both works with the NBC Symphony in 1938, but it was Eugene Ormandy who made the first recording of the “Essay,” with the Philadelphians, in 1940.

Vincent Persichetti was born in Philadelphia in 1915, and he died there in 1987. In between, he attended Combs College of Music, the Curtis Institute (where he studied conducting with Fritz Reiner) and the Philadelphia Conservatory. He taught at Combs and the Philly Conservatory. Then he received an invitation from William Schuman (some of whose music we heard last week) to take up a professorship at Juilliard.

Persichetti was one of our great composers, but to this day he remains underappreciated, more respected than loved. His Symphony No 4 of 1951 must be one of his most immediately attractive works.

Finally, John Vincent may be the most undeservedly neglected composer in Ormandy’s entire discography. Ormandy described his recording of Vincent’s Symphony in D (“A Festival Piece in One Movement”) as “one of the best we have ever done,” and the piece itself as “one of the finest compositions created by an American composer in the past decade.” The 1954 work sounds at times like Sibelius gone to the rodeo, but my, is it good stuff!

I hope you’ll join me for “All-American Ormandy II,” rarely-heard recordings of Barber, Persichetti and Vincent, on “The Lost Chord,” 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 wwfm.org.

To help get you in the mood, here’s an in-depth interview with Persichetti by Bruce Duffie:

http://www.bruceduffie.com/persichetti.html

November 12, 2019

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