Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Philadelphia

Philadelphia Music Writer and Romeo Cascarino Champion Tom Di Nardo

Every year on Romeo Casacarino’s birthday, I try to come up with a fresh angle, if I am able, to remember him and to promote the music of this rewarding Philadelphia composer, still too little heard, but gaining traction all the time. A longtime professor at the now-defunct Combs College of Music, Cascarino emerged from South Philadelphia a child prodigy, a “student” of Paul Nordoff (he was also invited to Tanglewood to take lessons with Aaron Copland), but really an autodidact, who dug deep into the collections of the Philadelphia Public Library.

He wrote a Bassoon Concerto for army buddy Sol Schoenbach, principal bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which still gets a lot of play. He labored over a handful of exquisitely-crafted tone pictures that often radiate a seductively dreamy “magic hour” glow. If only he had written more. But he was a meticulous artist, always in search of “le mot juste” – or rather, “la note juste” – the absolute correct note or combinations of notes to express precisely what he intuited. No doubt he would have written more, had he not poured so much of himself into his magnum opus, the opera “William Penn,” which he labored at for a quarter century. The work was given its first performances at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1982, with Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone John Cheek in the title role.

And this is where I come to the fresh approach, brought to mind, sadly, because of the passing of Cascarino’s champion and dear friend, Tom Di Nardo. Tom was a music writer for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and the Philadelphia Daily News, the author of several books, and a guy who, in his quiet, unassuming way, managed to move mountains. He did so without flash and often without recognition. He was the very definition of modesty and selflessness, always thinking of, and often doing things for, others. Some of these things could be extraordinary.

Several of his efforts contributed to Cascarino’s wider exposure and boosted his reputation significantly. I would go so far as to say that, after the composer’s wife, soprano Dolores Ferraro, Tom was Cascarino’s greatest champion. Somehow, without the composer’s knowledge, he managed to secure the Academy of Music (actually the easy part) and assemble an army of musicians and technicians to give “William Penn” its debut. He also saw to it that the performances were recorded and archived.

Furthermore, several years after Cascarino’s death, he was instrumental in pulling together an orchestra (principally musicians of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia) and arranging for a recording with conductor JoAnn Falletta of Cascarino’s orchestral works, which was released on the Naxos label in 2006.

Still more recently, he assisted in securing performers for a recording of Cascarino’s collection of eight songs, “Pathways of Love,” and his setting of “Danny Boy.” These performances are now available as digital downloads.

Tom wrote about his experiences with staging the opera at the Academy of Music and arranging for the orchestral recordings for Naxos, and a great deal more. He made it a point to interview as many prominent musicians who came through Philadelphia as possible, classical or otherwise, including Renée Fleming, Stéphane Grappelli, Sarah Chang, Bill Evans, John Williams, Andrés Segovia, Eric Owens, Max Roach, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Peter Schickele, and André Watts, as well as every Philadelphia Orchestra music director from Eugene Ormandy to Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He also shared anecdotes about his colorful encounters with Luciano Pavarotti, Mel Tormé, Betty Comden & Adolph Green, and Denyce Graves, among others.

These achievements are all the more remarkable as music was Tom’s avocation, if his life’s great passion. To keep food on the table, he worked as an engineer for Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO).

Long since retired, Tom died last week while on a trip to Sicily. I was astonished to learn that he was 89 years old. I knew Tom through Dolores, so I encountered him socially on a number of occasions, and interviewed him once, about Romeo, for my radio program “The Lost Chord.” The last time I chatted with him was at a concert of the Main Line Symphony Orchestra a couple of years ago.

I share the news of his passing today, because I see some of his other friends have already done so and also because of his close association with Romeo Cascarino. I encourage you to check out the appreciation by Kile Smith at the first link below. For all I’ve written here, I couldn’t do it as well as Kile. My post is largely informational, as I wanted to talk about his connection to Romeo. Kile does a great job getting at the man with a lot fewer brush strokes and remembering him in human terms.

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10233423040573595&set=a.4017195143910

I also found this: Tom speaking with pianist Hugh Sung for Sung’s web series “A Musical Life.”

The Naxos album of Cascarino’s orchestral works, which Tom executive produced (and provided the liner notes for, naturally):

R.I.P. Tom Di Nardo. You will be remembered, and missed, by many.

TOP PHOTO (left to right): Di Nardo, Cascarino, and “William Penn” librettist Peggy Gwynn

September 28, 2026
Quaker Notes: S. Weir Mitchell’s “Hugh Wynne”

I’d been meaning to read “Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker” for a good 25 years. Introduced to me by a fellow bibliophile who added much to my knowledge and education in the book trade, “Hugh” was the second best-selling novel of 1898, behind Francis Hopkinson Smith’s “Caleb West, Master Diver,” about the dangerous underwater construction of a lighthouse off the coast of New England. Smith, a descendent of the Declaration signer whose name he shares, was an engineer who built New York’s Race Rock Lighthouse, as well as the foundation to the Statue of Liberty.

Essentially, “Hugh Wynne” is a bildungsroman set during the American Revolution and the years preceding, about a young Quaker of Welsh ancestry, who is raised in colonial Philadelphia by a severe father (the author’s preface to the book’s nineteenth edition indicates that this character was the source of some controversy in the Friends community) and a vivacious, indulgent French mother, while also receiving instruction on the side in the ways of society and the wider world by an independent, free-thinking, well-to-do aunt (his father’s sister). In my ideal film adaptation, I imagine Edna May Oliver or perhaps Dame Edith Evans in the role.

Interestingly, Hugh’s best friend is Jack Warder, who is noted throughout for his effeminacy – I mean, nearly every time he appears, in person or in conversation, to the point where how could the reader not wonder if there was something coded going on there. But Mitchell also has him hopelessly in love with a capricious coquette who entrances seemingly every male in the novel, and sets up an interesting rivalry with Hugh, which is never fully exploited.

It’s not the only aspect of the drama Mitchell fails to leverage. The novel’s last act should have been screwed to a fever pitch. Within moments of finishing the book, I thought of at least three elements that, had the author squeezed the tube, would have really heightened the drama. And it’s a great shame that he didn’t, as the book could have been as fondly remembered as any of the historical fiction of James Fennimore Cooper.

Instead, he deflates tension by having Hugh reveal things such as, “On the last occasion I saw so-and-so,” negating all suspense as to whether or not a certain villain is going to come back later to make trouble for the protagonists. At the beginning, he remembers his late friend Jack – the story is told in the first-person, with selections from Jack’s diary filling in details or offering perspectives at the time unknown to Hugh – which, as the novel progresses, makes the reader anticipate Jack’s untimely end – which never comes! And there is the wasted potential of heightened tension between two friends in their love for the same woman. Astonishing, that Mitchell could squander such opportunities! In their place, he settles for drawing room kerfuffle and romantic coda.

That said, the book does have its points, particularly for those familiar with Center City Philadelphia, especially Society Hill and Old City, but also Germantown and Chestnut Hill. It’s interesting to imagine this colonial town of woodlots, woodland from 8th Street to the Schuylkill, and wilderness north of Fairmount Avenue, which, when occupied, is dotted with English forts.

The book is also successful in illustrating just how divided the colonials were in their beliefs and allegiances, even as they were united in their social lives. Tories and Patriots frequently occupy the same drawing rooms, sharing gossip, tea, and cards, united in all, it seems, except politics. In fact, Hugh forms a number of allegiances and friendships with Loyalists and even British soldiers that show that, in some respects, the American Revolution was actually a precursor of the Civil War, in terms of pitting brother against brother. This is something historical fiction can often address more effectively than the bald statistics of straight history.

Naturally, as a Quaker – a member of the Religious Society of Friends – Hugh also struggles to reconcile his pacifist upbringing with a moral duty to fight for American independence. At home, there is further tension in his conflicted relationship with his domineering, disapproving father, who, as the story progresses, also becomes a figure of concern, as he begins to show signs of cognitive decline.

Hugh is less guarded in his emotions when he attempts to save a friend condemned to death for spying. Earlier, another, newfound friend looks out for him while they are incarcerated in a makeshift British prison on what is now Washington Square, of a type, in its squalor and brutality, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo would have recognized.

Hugh’s Philadelphia is a port town of merchants and blacksmiths, taverns and churches, redcoats and Continental Congressmen. In peacetime, mornings are passed in abundant private gardens, lazy afternoons in boating on (and bathing in) the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and free days on horseback excursions to Germantown and Chestnut Hill.

However, there are ominous undercurrents even in Hugh’s largely untroubled youth, as the colonies begin to bristle under English taxation and corruption. The spirit of revolution is intensifying, and Hugh will be a part of the action. Historical figures such as Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Benedict Arnold, and especially George Washington, play supporting, though obviously important, parts in the narrative.

The author, S. Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), was a prominent Philadelphia doctor and Civil War surgeon. His observations of nerve trauma and “phantom limb” syndrome launched him on a career as a pioneer in the field of neurology.

Some of his theories and treatments were not uncontroversial. Charlotte Perkins Gilman claimed to have written her famous short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” as a repost to Mitchell’s “rest cure” – which prescribed bed rest, seclusion, electrotherapy, and overfeeding on a protein diet (including a lot of milk), primarily for “nervous” women, who were also instructed not to engage in intellectual activity, such as study, writing, or any kind of creative work. Anxious men were sent West to rope, hunt, and roughride.

Mitchell wrote broadly on science and medical matters, but at midlife, he was also took an interest in literary fiction. “Hugh Wynne” proved to be his greatest success. It’s an absorbing read, I would even say a page-turner, by my standards, but I understand I am a peculiar person, often older than my years, perhaps even born too late. I always kept a selection of Mitchell’s novels in my Philadelphia bookshops, and they invariably sold. So there are still other people out there who know their local history – or perhaps medical history – and are interested in reading him.

Of his other titles, Mitchell’s “The Red City” is also set in Philadelphia, during the time of Washington’s second administration and the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793 (during which many were buried in Washington Square – then Southeast Square – since 1706 a potter’s field and final resting place of African Americans, Native Americans, and Revolutionary War soldiers).

It’s also mindblowing to contemplate a time when the City of Brotherly Love really was an extension of Penn’s Woods, with abundant tree cover and even forest over most of Center City. My thoughts travel to a print I once saw of a view from the old Fairmount Prison (also instituted by Quakers), with Penn’s “green country town” so seemingly distant. From as recently as the 1920s and ‘30s, there are black and white photographs of livestock being driven down Broad Street. How quickly it all changed, how Penn’s vision devolved into a modern urban nightmare. I am reminded of Wilde’s quip, “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

Attentive Philadelphians will still find evidence of Weir’s life and accomplishments around town. There’s an historical marker, a frieze with his likeness, on a building at 1528 Walnut Street (the site of his former residence), not far from Rittenhouse Square. There’s Mitchell Elementary School in southwest Philly. There’s Mitchell Hall in the College of Physicians on 22nd Street (in the same structure that houses the notorious Mütter Museum of medical oddities). And of course there’s his final resting place in Woodlands Cemetery. Interestingly, I only just learned of a contemporary actor and producer, Silas Weir Mitchell – a distant relative – born in Philadelphia in 1969.

Early editions of “Hugh Wynne” (including my copy) contain black and white plates by Howard Pyle, which, to be honest, lack the dynamism of his famous pirate illustrations and are actually kind of blah. The cover is great, though, with gold cloth embossed with black lettering and ornate design, and a color paste-down plate of Hugh in a tricorn.

It’s fascinating to consider that at the time “Hugh” was written, it would be the equivalent of someone today writing an historical novel about the turn of last century – the time when ”Hugh” was actually written! The novel is equidistant between us and the events of the nation’s founding. Mitchell might very well have encountered veterans of the Revolution. (It’s thought that the last of these, Daniel Frederick Bakeman, died in 1869 at the age of 109.) He certainly grew up surrounded by the living memory of the Revolutionary generation. It is yet another example of what we all take for granted as the comparative youth of the United States, but being made to focus on it, its brevity still boggles the mind.

———-

A fairly thorough overview of Mitchell

https://www.med.upenn.edu/neurology/silas-weir-mitchell.html

His “Rest” and “West” cures

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/01/go-rest

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

Gilman, “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”

https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/18-industrial-america/charlotte-perkins-gilman-why-i-wrote-the-yellow-wallpaper-1913/

S. Weir Mitchell historical marker

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=232078

September 2, 2026
Expanding My Horizons with Carl Nielsen

When I first heard Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, I was sweating it out in a one-room efficiency in West Philadelphia that I shared with two of my classmates, while making up a math course I had flubbed at Temple University.

It was the summer of ’85, there was no air conditioning, and I studied and slept in a netted hammock suspended from two bicycle hooks I had screwed into the door frames to prevent being surprised by mice. There was always movement in the lone trash bag that sat exposed on the linoleum in the corner of the kitchenette, and to prove a point once I lobbed a sneaker into it, from the safety of my resting place, so that the rodents poured out of it and scurried around the apartment, sending one of my roommates, the one whose name was on the lease, shrieking into his bunk. He had a job canvasing for a political organization, so he was gone all day and would stagger back every night after last-call to sketch with intensity under a bright, exposed lightbulb that shone down in my face. Somewhere along the way, he brought home a turtle, which he kept in the bathtub and fed raw hamburger, until I couldn’t take its imprisonment any longer and finally released it into Fairmount Park.

The other roommate had the good sense to get a girlfriend, so he was never there. His contribution was a makeshift bunk bed hastily assembled from planks he had plucked from the garbage. The top bunk was usually vacant, due to his absence, and the bottom bunk was where my politically-motivated, alcohol-fueled, musky, mulchy-footed friend slept between me and the sole window fan.

Occasionally, I’d glimpse a cockroach making its way down one of the ropes of my hammock, and I’d start rocking about, trying to dislodge it. More than once, one of the bike hooks let go. The roaches were everywhere. There were even roaches in the freezer.

It was under these circumstances, one boxed-in, sweltering afternoon, that I first experienced Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Sinfonia espansiva.” It was broadcast on WFLN, Philadelphia’s classical music station for nearly 50 years (sadly, now defunct). Nielsen’s aspirational music opened up horizons for me and offered glimpses of larger things.

The recording was conducted by Leonard Bernstein. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, Carl Nielsen is Denmark’s most celebrated composer. Yet, internationally, his music has struggled to take root in the shadow of that other great bard of the North, Jean Sibelius. This is a shame, since, far from being a Sibelius knock-off, Nielsen forged his own, immediately-recognizable style. Bernstein believed Nielsen’s rightful place was as Sibelius’ equal.

“I think many people are in for pleasant surprises as they get to know Nielsen,” he said at a centennial celebration of the composer’s birth, “his rough charm, his swing, his drive, his rhythmic surprises, his strange power of harmonic and tonal relationships – and especially his constant unpredictability – all these are irresistible. I feel confident that Nielsen’s time has come.”

Hey, he was right about Mahler. But that was in 1965, and Lenny’s prophetic lightning failed to strike twice. Sixty-one years on, with many more recordings and performances to choose from, Nielsen’s music remains, stubbornly, an acquired taste, if a rewarding one. There really is nothing else quite like it – the puckish wit, the ambiguities, the quirky juxtaposition of seemingly disparate melodies, harmonies, and key signatures, all very often shot through with a sense of hope and optimism that rises above the chaos.

I only lived in that hell hole for about a month, one summer session, thankfully, just long enough to make-up my credits, and then it was off to the greenery of my hometown to detox. But I was in the process of selling my soul for a piece of parchment, a degree, so in the fall it was back to Philadelphia.

After the purchase of my first CD-player, in order to feed my habit, I took a part-time job as a clerk at Sam Goody, a record shop then located at 11th and Chestnut Streets, which at the time had the most extensive classical music section in the city. (This was before the arrival of Tower Records.) It was there that I acquired Neeme Järvi’s Prokofiev cycle, Bernard Haitink’s Shostakovich cycle, Adrian Boult’s Vaughan Williams cycle, and my first recording of Nielsen’s Symphony No. 3. Essentially, I signed my paycheck back over to the company in exchange for CDs. I remember my frustration that so much of the good stuff was still only on LP.

The Nielsen recording was not the classic Leonard Bernstein performance I had heard on the radio – which had yet to be transferred to compact disc – but a newer, digital recording with Myung-Whun Chung and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, on the BIS label. And I have to say, giving all credit to Bernstein for his advocacy of Nielsen’s music, I believe Chung’s recording outshines his in every way. To this day, I find it to be one of the most satisfying Nielsen recordings. It must have been within my first ten CD purchases. I remember when I had so few, I could keep them all in a shoebox. Now I’ve got a library of a good 10,000. You might say it has gone “espansiva.”

What exactly did Nielsen mean by that choice of subtitle? Robert Simpson wrote that the use of “espansiva” suggests an “outward growth of the mind’s scope.” There is certainly a sensation of expanding horizons about the piece, which includes a pastoral slow movement complete with wordless solos for soprano and baritone. According to Nielsen, the symphony concludes with “a hymn to work and the healthy activity of living.” All I know is that it fills me with optimism and happiness.

A tip of the blond brush cut to Carl Nielsen on his birthday. Perhaps his time will come. For me, it arrived in a very different climate from that of Copenhagen, in tropical West Philadelphia, in the summer 1985.

——–

Leonard Bernstein conducts the Royal Danish Orchestra on its own turf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNNP_4TYnV4

Myung-Whun Chung and the Gothenburg Symphony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_-K_w9wdM

“Espansiva: A Portrait of Carl Nielsen”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0a1CPcTDEA&t

June 9, 2026
A Philadelphia Bookseller’s Recollections of Jules Massenet

When I started my book business in Philadelphia in the mid-1990s, it was the pioneer days of AbeBooks – an online service (ABE an acronym for Advanced Book Exchange) that allowed independent dealers to hawk their more esoteric wares to a worldwide audience. In 2008, ABE was swallowed by the great Satan, Amazon.com (earlier, there were seller agreements with all the major platforms), but by then I was closing up shop anyway and eager to move on to other things. For those 13 years, I was a house divided against myself, as I had been hired as a classical music radio host right after I had negotiated my lease on my first storefront!

As you can imagine, I had built quite the music inventory. I was located about block from the Curtis Institute, people wandered in after Philadelphia Orchestra matinees, and thanks to ABE, I developed a decent international clientele. But when you’re a bookdealer, if you want to be successful, you really have to draw the line between being a seller and being a collector, and I couldn’t always do that. Furthermore, I was maddeningly inconsistent. So I would sell off books inscribed by Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, and John Philip Sousa, but I would turn around and skim off for myself a letter scrawled by Jean Sibelius. (I’m not crazy!)

My greatest regret was the time I sold one of the original, privately-printed pamphlets of “The Greatest Gift” by Philip Van Doren Stern, which he sent out to friends as a Christmas card and later became the basis for the perennial favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life.” There were only 200 of them in existence. It’s a piece of memorabilia that’s only going to go up in value, and I sold it to some pig lawyer for cash on the barrel. He was a regular customer, a real arrogant son-of-a-bitch. He held a lit cigar between his fingers as he counted out the bills. I wish it had gone to anyone except him. But I had to keep the doors open.

Seller or collector… grrrrrrrr.

Further blurring the line between the sides of the register occurred because I often viewed transactions from the point-of-view of a customer. It was a great weakness of mine, because I knew as a booklover how excited I’d get when I discovered a real book bargain. So I underpriced many of my items, understanding the thrill, even when I could have squeezed more money out of a lot of them. Another upside, of course, was that I was able to turn over my inventory fairly quickly.

There wasn’t always a lot, if anything, online in those days to guide one, so a dealer had to rely on his knowledge and intuition, not only to stock and price books, but to come up with attractive and witty descriptions of their contents for the ABE catalogue. Naturally, I couldn’t read everything. But on this birthday anniversary of the composer Jules Massenet, I am reminded of his memoir, “My Recollections,” that, in leafing through, struck me as especially witty and eccentric, as it concludes with a chapter describing his own death and departure from this world. It was so bizarre that it popped into my head yesterday, as I was glancing at today’s music birthdays.

While my own description seems to have been lost to time (I thought I might have been able to find a sales invoice in the far reaches of my email account), I have managed to locate the actual text, reproduced by Project Gutenberg. As proof that people never change, when Massenet’s memoir was first published in installments in the newspaper L’Écho de Paris, some readers pointed out that the story was incomplete and asked him why he hadn’t included a chapter about his death (!). Massenet, as an intelligent person, laughed this off, but after he turned 70, contemplations of his own mortality were inevitable. It was then that he decided to add an appendix, “Pensées posthumes,” a translation of which follows.

CHAPTER XXIX

THOUGHTS AFTER DEATH

I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns. Of old I was never able to get such lighting for my scenery on the great stage at the Opéra where the backdrops were too often in darkness. Henceforth there will be no letters to answer; I have bade farewell to first performances and the literary and other discussions which come from them.

Here there are no newspapers, no dinners, no sleepless nights. Ah! if I could but counsel my friends to join me here, I would not hesitate to call them to me. But would they come?

Before I came to this distant place where I now sojourn, I wrote out my last wishes (an unhappy husband would have taken advantage of the occasion to write with joy, “my first wishes”).

I had indicated that above all I wanted to be buried at Égreville, near the family abode in which I had lived so long. Oh, the good cemetery in the open fields, silent as befits those who live there!

I asked that they should refrain from hanging black draperies on my door, ornaments worn threadbare by use. I expressed the wish that a suitable carriage should take me from Paris, the journey, with my consent, to begin at eight in the morning.

An evening paper (perhaps two) felt it to be its duty to inform its readers of my decease. A few friends – I still had some the day before – came and asked my concierge if the news were true, and he replied, “Alas, Monsieur went without leaving his address.” And his reply was true for he did not know where that obliging carriage was taking me.

At lunch acquaintances honored me among themselves with their condolences, and during the day here and there in the theaters they spoke of the adventure,

“Now that he is dead, they’ll play him less, won’t they?”

“Do you know he left still another work?”

“Ah, believe me, I loved him well! I have always had such great success in his works.”

A woman’s lovely voice said that.

They wept at my publishers, for there they loved me dearly.

At home, Rue de Vaugirard, my wife, daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered and almost found consolation in their sobs.

The family was to reach Égreville the same evening, the night before my burial.

And my soul (the soul survives the body) listened to all these sounds from the city left behind. As the carriage took me farther and farther away, the talking and the noises grew fainter and fainter, and I knew, for I had my vault built long ago, that the heavy stone once sealed would be a few hours later the portal of oblivion.

THE END

You can find the complete text of “My Recollections” here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36728/36728-h/36728-h.htm

Happy birthday, Jules Massenet, wherever you are!

May 12, 2026
Adieu, Bernard Rands

My friend Mather Pfeiffenberger tipped me off last week that composer Bernard Rands died. I received the news with some amazement, as I could have sworn he’d been gone for some time. But Rands lived to a venerable age, passing on March 4, two days after his 92nd birthday.

He was a regular presence at Philadelphia Orchestra concerts during Riccardo Muti’s music directorship in the 1980s and ‘90s. He served as the orchestra’s composer-in-residence from 1989 to 1995. If I remember correctly, as part of his job description, he offered advice on new music and exercised enormous influence over Muti’s contemporary programming. I can’t say I took to very many of the works that were performed, but I was young then. I might appreciate them more now.

EDIT: I did NOT remember correctly. It was Richard Wernick who advised Muti. I wrote about Wernick when he died last April. (Please note, it was A.I. that generated the headline.)

https://rossamico.com/2025/04/28/richard-wernick-pulitzer-winner-almost-hit-me/

Born in Sheffield, England, Rands studied with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt and Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan. This certainly gave him a grounding in contemporary and avant-garde techniques – unquestionably he was well-versed in the multifarious musical idioms of the day, at least the more abstract ones – but I never detected anything that would frighten the horses in his own works.

Among his residencies in the United States was a stint at Princeton University. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1975 and became an American citizen in 1983. He also held teaching posts at the University of California, San Diego, Juilliard, Yale, Boston University, and from 1988 to 2005, Harvard University.

He was married to the composer Augusta Read Thomas. I actually had dinner with them once in Philadelphia, I believe in connection with an Orchestra 2001 concert in 2007. We were not the only guests, and if we talked at all it couldn’t have been about anything of substance, because I can’t remember anything about it.

Rands was an influential figure, no doubt, as an advisor and teacher. He composed around 100 works, which were widely performed, and many of them were recorded. I was a frequent enough attendee of Philadelphia Orchestra concerts back in the day that I was present at the performances that were documented on this New World Records release, including “Canti dell’Eclissi” conducted by Gerard Schwarz, who as I recall was an eleventh-hour substitution for Muti, who was down with the flu. “Canti” was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1984.

I can’t say it was my favorite of his works.

I thought “Le Tambourin Suite No. 1” was more my speed, but it’s not hitting me right this morning. It would go down a lot easier if it sounded more like “Le tombeau de Couperin.”

In reviews, his music was often compared to that of Ravel and Debussy. This “Aubade,” the second of three movements that make up his English Horn Concerto, seems like something I could live with.

Rands always seemed like a nice guy. I wish I liked his music better.

R.I.P.

———

Rands on listening to new music

“Adieu”

March 12, 2026

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS