If you’ve got Francis Fever, but you’re too pooped to Pope, you can avoid the excitement of impassible bridges and car impoundments simply by staying home and turning on the radio. I can’t promise it will be like a vicarious thumbs up from the Pontiff, but you’ll hear plenty of music inspired by his namesake, St. Francis, and the animals he respected and loved.
The historical Francis was the son of a prosperous silk merchant, who renounced his worldly life and took a vow of poverty, inspiring others to follow him and in the process creating three religious orders. Two years after his death in 1226, he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is patron saint of animals and the environment, and one of the two patron saints of Italy (the other being Catherine of Siena). You’ll notice pets and their owners lined up around Catholic and Anglican churches on October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis. FUN FACT: St. Francis is alleged to have been the inventor of the Christmas crèche, or the Nativity scene.
We’ll have musical salutes to Francis by Kenneth Fuchs, Paul Hindemith, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Joaquin Rodrigo, Leo Sowerby, and Sir William Walton, interspersed with musical evocations of four-legged, winged and scaled friends, such as Samuel Barber’s “The Monk and His Cat,” Jennifer Higdon’s “An Exaltation of Larks,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and of course Gioachino Rossini’s “Cat Duet.”
As if all that weren’t enough, we’ll be graced by the presence of Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, who will drop by at around 9:00 to tell us a little bit about the PSO’s upcoming season, which will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, when violinist Jennifer Koh performs Anna Clyne’s “The Seamstress” (after a poem of William Butler Yeats) and Rossen Milanov conducts Sergei Rachmaninoff’s wonderfully wistful Symphony No. 2.
Do keep in mind that we will be heard at a special time this week. Due to Yom Kippur, Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries will air on THURSDAY morning from 5:30 to 11 ET; Classic Ross Amico will appear in Marvin’s usual slot, WEDNESDAY morning, though in my case it will be from 6 to 11. That extra half hour’s sleep makes all the difference!
I hope you’ll join us on WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com. We’re pulling the old switcheroo this week, on Classic Ross Amico.
