Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Piano Concerto

Leon Fleisher at 92 A Brahms Birthday Tribute

Happy birthday, Leon Fleisher, a great artist and a lovely person, here playing a selection from Brahms’ First Piano Concerto – at the behest of Yo-Yo Ma, no less (follow the link below). Fleisher’s recordings of the Brahms concertos, set down with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, over half a century earlier, remain benchmarks.

Focal dystonia curtailed Fleisher’s career as a pianist not long after. But like a plant trimmed back that soon develops fresh tendrils, he then flourished as a conductor, as a champion of the left-hand piano repertoire (there’s much more to it than Ravel’s famous concerto), and especially as a teacher. He has taught at Baltimore’s Peabody Institute, among other places, and held master classes, since 1959.

Thanks in part to Botox injections in his right hand, Fleisher has been able to return to performing two-handed repertoire, to some extent, and has continued to make critically acclaimed recordings. And yes, he also still performs recitals.

Speaking with me in 2014, he expressed gratitude that things developed as they did. If he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Many happy returns, Leon Fleisher, 92 years-old today!

Impromptu performance of a passage from Brahms:

Fleisher, the young lion:

In 2014, in Brahms’ left-hand arrangement of the Bach Chaconne:

July 23, 2020
Leith Stevens’ Lost Piano Concerto

Hey, I’m the music guy, right?

In preparing to talk about “The War of the Worlds” on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” the other day, I was in the process of boning up on Leith Stevens, the film’s composer, when I stumbled across this clip. It’s a piano concerto written for “Night Song” (1948), a movie starring Dana Andrews that somehow had slipped beneath my radar. The music is performed in the film by Arthur Rubinstein, Eugene Ormandy, and the New York Philharmonic.

What’s that you say? The music is not about to win a Pulitzer? Well Rubinstein and Ormandy aren’t going win any Oscars either! (Actually, they’re not half bad.) Stevens eschews the Rachmaninoff-style movie concerto kitsch then very much in vogue. (I’m looking at you, “Warsaw Concerto.”) The trade-off, unfortunately, is a concerto that quickly faded into oblivion. More’s the pity. All in all, a fascinating document.

Ah, the good old days, when you could enjoy a cigarette in a stairwell, while dreaming about touching Merle Oberon’s face, on the beach, during a concert…

From Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times: “…The music, the prize concerto—well, that is really the thing which puts ‘Night Song’ in the spotlight as baldfaced and absolute sham. For this scrappy and meaningless jangle by Leith Stevens is good for nothing more than an excuse for filming the fiddles, the drums and the batteries of horns. And if Mr. Rubinstein and Mr. Ormandy can swallow it, along with their pride, they must have pretty strong stomachs.”

Ouch! Everyone’s a critic.

Crowther was later drummed out of the Times for doubling down on his hatred of “Bonnie and Clyde” in 1968.

July 20, 2020
Grieg Birthday Broadcast on WWFM

It’s Grieg to me!

Join me today for music by the great Norwegian master on his birthday anniversary, including a knock-out performance of his Piano Concerto with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. We’ll also have music to mark the births of Franz Danzi, Guy Ropartz, Robert Russell Bennett, and Otto Luening.

There’s Norway you’ll want to miss this show! Be with me from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 15, 2017
Aaron Copland’s Jazz Concerto Birthday

He was America’s foremost composer of “art music.” What he was not was George Gershwin.

Join me this afternoon, as we celebrate the birthday of Aaron Copland with, among other things, his Piano Concerto, composed in 1926. Copland was still feeling his way toward his “populist period” (which began with “El Salón México,” not given its premiere until ten years later), when he wrote this concerto, which spikes 1920s modernism with American jazz.

The composer was the soloist in the work’s first performance, which featured the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. The critics panned it, but Copland’s mother beamed with pride. The composer wrote, “I was delighted when Ma said it was her proudest moment and that my playing in the Concerto made all those music lessons worthwhile!”

It retained its reputation as a shocker until 1947, when Leonard Bernstein revived it with Leo Smith as the soloist, and it struggles still, even next to Copland’s own Clarinet Concerto. In the meantime, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” (from 1924) has never been out of the repertoire.

Hear this underexposed work today, between 4 and 7:00 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

November 14, 2016
Sgambati Dyson Ligeti Birthdays Classical Music

There are days when I have to reach into the dank recesses my lizard brain in order to find something worthwhile to post. There are others when the Classical Music Gods rain interesting birthday anniversaries like manna from Heaven. Today is an example of the latter.

Unfortunately, with all my obligations, I am unable to do any of them justice, but they all wrote worthwhile music. Do yourself a favor and sample some of it.

Today is the birthday anniversary of

Giovanni Sgambati (1841-1914)

Here’s his knucklebusting Piano Concerto – performed by Jorge Bolet, no less:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37dlnzTSF-s;

George Dyson (1883-1964)

His oratorio after Chaucer, “The Canterbury Pilgrims”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNxdVTS9028;

and György Ligeti (1923-2006)

“Lux Aeterna” (with creepy fractal):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVYu5lyX5M.

Happy birthday, boys. Wish I had time to write about any one of you!

More about fractals here:

What are Fractals?

PHOTOS (clockwise from left): Sgambati; Dyson; and Ligeti, channeling Klaus Kinski

May 28, 2015

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS