Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Philadelphia Orchestra

Sibelius Celebrated on WPRB 103.3 FM

We continue our celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jean Sibelius (which occurred on December 8, 1865). Right now, we’re in the middle of an hour of his final masterworks, including incidental music from “The Tempest,” the tone poem “Tapiola,” and the Symphony No. 7.

Then at 10:00 we’ll ricochet back to one of his early successes, “Four Legends from the Kalevala,” in a fantastic recording with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

It’s all-Sibelius until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

#Sibelius150

PHOTO: Sibelius with Eugene Ormandy

December 10, 2015
Ormandy’s Lost American Music Rediscovered

I hope you’ll join me tonight on “The Lost Chord,” as we round out our trilogy of programs featuring rarely-heard recordings of American music by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

We’ll hear two songs (originally from a collection of five), after texts of William Blake, by Virgil Thomson; Roy Harris’ underrated Symphony No. 7, in a powerhouse performance; and Louis Gesensway’s “Four Squares of Philadelphia.”

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 in the orchestra under 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 (captured 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, reflective of noisy bridge traffic, with a side excursion into Chinatown, and interjections from the honky tonk joints located around the square in the 1950s).

I hope you’ll join me for one more trip to the well, with “All-American Ormandy III,” tonight at 10 ET, or that you’ll listen to it (while you’re sitting in traffic, no doubt) when the show repeats Thanksgiving eve at 6. If your family is stressing you out, you can always catch it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Statue of Penn high atop the city he founded

November 22, 2015
Ormandy’s Lost American Music

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 15, 2015
Fantasia’s 75th Anniversary Celebration

This week marks the 75th anniversary of the release of Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.” The film, of course, is made up of eight animated sequences, ranging from the comical to the visionary, set to a Chernobog’s handful of the world’s classics, performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Stokowski.

Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we mark the event with vintage performances of music presented in the film, alongside additional works, all conducted by Stokowski.

“Fantasia” was first rolled out as a 13-city theatrical roadshow on November 13, 1940. A curio and a money-loser at the time of its release, its artistic vision, episodic, often non-narrative structure, and expense, in terms of both production and the installation of special equipment during its initial tour (“Fantasia” was the first commercial film presented in stereophonic sound) ensured that it couldn’t possibly recoup its costs, especially during wartime.

However, subsequent decades have solidified the film’s stature as a cult classic, reissued many times, so that it now stands, when adjusted for inflation, as the 22nd most profitable film in U.S. entertainment history.

The creative marriage of Disney and Stokowski was bound to yield fascinating results. Disney envisioned “a new style of motion picture presentation” that would bring classical music to an audience (among which he included himself) that ordinarily “walked out on this kind of stuff.”

Stokowski would prove to be an ideal choice. The conductor’s ability to conjure unusual colors from one of the world’s finest orchestras was captured on eight optical sound recording machines over seven weeks at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. This kind of thing simply wasn’t done in 1939!

The development of “Fantasound” pioneered simultaneous multi-track recording, overdubbing and noise reduction techniques, all processes still in wide use today.

I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of “Fantasia,” on WPRB 103.3 FM and online at wprb.com. We vicariously shake hands with the Mouse, on Classic Ross Amico.

November 11, 2015
Ormandy’s Lost American Legacy

Eugene Ormandy, of course, was born in Hungary. His birth name was Jenő Blau. But he became a naturalized American citizen in 1927 and directed the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years.

In that capacity, he championed much contemporary music and works by his adopted countrymen –facts frequently forgotten next to his legacy 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 briefly attempted to rectify the situation by reissuing some of Ormandy’s recordings of lesser-heard American music. In the event, the series only reached three discs, but each of them is a treasure.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two works by Pulitzer Prize-winners, both of whose music has sadly fallen out of fashion. The first is William Schuman, 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, Schuman was also President of Lincoln Center.

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

Norman Dello Joio was the recipient of the Pulitzer in 1957 for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” The concert suite from “Air Power” was adapted from 22 individual scores he composed for the CBS television series, about the history of aviation, which aired from November 1956 through spring of 1957. Its individual sections underscore the early days of flight, with its barnstormers and daredevils, followed by those of air battles and war scenes.

I hope you’ll join me for these rarely heard recordings of American music, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. That’s “All-American Ormandy,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at wwfm.org.

November 8, 2015

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