Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Philadelphia Orchestra

Mahler 7 Philadelphia Orchestra Review

With Robert Moran last night for Mahler 7 with The Philadelphia Orchestra, at the recently-rechristened Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. Bob likes to get there early and, last night anyway, sit close, so here we are, all alone, in our “box” in the third tier, like Statler and Waldorf, overlooking the stage and waiting for the auditorium to fill. The vantage is not my preference, but it is within my price range, and – pleasant surprise – the sound did not suffer at all for it. The orchestra performed magnificently under its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, but the brass players, in particular, must have had their super-serum. Everything was so immediate, which in my experience has not always been the case in this hall. Of course, Mahler, he does write big.

The 7th has fun, outlandish touches in the orchestration, including parts for acoustic guitar, mandolin, and cowbells, for the pastoral “Nachtmusik” movements (there are two of them framing a central scherzo in a five-movement structure, which is why you will sometimes hear the work referred to as “Song of the Night”), and enormous, pendulous chimes for the rousing finale.

The crowd, which included many young people, a number of whom looked like they were bused in together as part of a sizeable group, roared its approval, and a smiling Yannick, who looked all the world like a diminutive angel on the podium, as I gazed down on his blond hair, went from section to section to genuflect before all the principals. Percussionist Don Liuzzi was clearly an audience favorite for his thrilling mastery of the timpani.

The orchestra will take its act to Carnegie Hall tonight at 8:00, but will return to Philly for two more performances, Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 2:00. You may not think that the 7th is anyone’s favorite Mahler, but if the orchestra plays with the energy and commitment it did last night, you could change your mind.

Tickets and information here:

https://www.philorch.org/performances/our-season/events-and-tickets/

Don Liuzzi timpani teaser

Look closely at the bird’s-eye, and you’ll see the guitar and mandolin on the left, next to the harps

April 12, 2024
Marin Alsop Joins Philly Orchestra

Marin Alsop has been appointed principal guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, beginning in the 2024-25 season. Details at the link.

January 9, 2024
Frank Kaderabek Obituary Philadelphia Orchestra

I’m a little late to the table for this one, but I just learned that Frank Kaderabek has died. For me, Kaderabek was a familiar presence from his twenty years as principal trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra. But it turns out it was but the crown on an estimable career as an orchestra musician. No doubt he was burnished in the raging fiery furnace of Fritz Reiner’s Chicago Symphony, with its legendary brass section, but he also held positions with the Dallas and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. This may be old news to some, but it’s all new to me. All I know is that Kaderabek was one of the Philly all-stars who played under Ormandy and who made my weekly sojourns to the Academy of Music in the 1980s and ‘90s so rewarding.

Kaderabek died on December 28 at the age of 94. His recordings will live on.

A very informative and satisfying obituary at the link. It really gives a sense of a life well lived.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/inquirer/name/frank-john-kaderabek-obituary?id=53976009

In Scriabin’s “The Poem of Ecstasy”

Opening Mahler’s Symphony No. 5

And Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”

I may be wrong about this, and please correct me if I am, but I believe he’s playing shoulder-to-shoulder here with some legendary brass players of Reiner’s Chicago Symphony – under guest conductor Paul Hindemith!

R.I.P.

January 7, 2024
Ormandy’s All-American Philadelphia Sound

This week 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 (born on this date in 1896), 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,” 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 EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PLEASE NOTE: This show was recorded in 2015 and employs material reissued on compact disc for the first time on the Albany and Bay Cities labels. All three of these performances have since been remastered (including the wholly restored “Five Blake Songs”), as part of Sony Classical’s 120-CD box set of Ormandy’s Philadelphia mono recordings, “Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Legacy,” in 2021.

The first installment of Ormandy’s stereo recordings were released earlier this month in an 88-CD box, also from Sony, “Eugene Ormandy/The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Columbia Stereo Collection,” on November 17.

Both Sony sets sound fantastic (with the caveat that the first is in mono). Both are highly recommended.

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

November 25, 2023
Ormandy’s Lost Chord American Music

This week on “The Lost Chord,” for Eugene Ormandy’s birthday, it’s the second installment in a three-part series of 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, on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Happy birthday, Eugene Ormandy!

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 EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream them here!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

PLEASE NOTE: Ormandy’s recording of John Vincent’s Symphony in D was reissued yesterday, November 17, as part of Sony Classical’s new 88-CD box, “Eugene Ormandy/The Philadelphia Orchestra: The Columbia Stereo Collection.” I opened my set this morning with trembling hands!

Persichetti’s Symphony No. 4 was reissued in 2021, as part of Sony’s laudable 120-CD box of Ormandy’s Philadelphia mono recordings, “Eugene Ormandy: The Columbia Legacy.”

Both Sony releases are newly-remastered.

November 18, 2023

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