Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Ralph Vaughan Williams

Rainy Day English & New Music on WWFM

With rain in the forecast, it promises to be a soggy afternoon, perhaps redolent of a day in the British Isles. Anglophile that I am, I’ll be reaching for the low-hanging fruit, on The Classical Network, and present an afternoon of English music.

We’ll hear Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 8, with its quirky instrumentation, the ballet “Pineapple Poll,” after melodies of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and the oratorio “Nebuchadnezzar” by Sir George Dyson. There will also be a piano concerto by Malcolm Williamson, a perpetual outsider, born in Australia, who became Master of the Queen’s Music.

First, on today’s Noontime Concert, it’s another program featuring musicians from Network for New Music . Presented under the unifying theme of “Masters of Minimalism,” we’ll hear Gerald Levinson’s “Bronze Music,” John Adams’ “Road Movies,” Hannah Lash’s “C,” and Evan Ziporyn’s “Air = Water.”

NNM’s mission is to perform new musical works of the highest quality by a diverse array of established and emerging composers; to strengthen the new music community in the Philadelphia region; and to build support for new music by engaging in artistic and institutional collaborations and educational activities.

Founded in 1984, Network for New Music has presented more than 650 works by living composers (of which over 150 they have commissioned) and recorded four CDs for the Albany and Innova labels. The ensemble has held an ongoing residency at Haverford College since 2007.

This Sunday at 3 p.m., NNM will present a special program, “The Poet’s Mind,” at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School Mary Louise Curtis Branch, 416 Queen Street. Guest artists, soprano Ah Young Hong and mezzo-soprano Maren Montalbano, will join NNM musicians to perform György Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments,” the world premiere of Philip Maneval’s “The Poet’s Songbook,” a new work by June Violet Aino, also inspired by Kafka, and music by Florence Price. For more information and a complete schedule, look online at networkfornewmusic.org.

I’m not sure, exactly, that air = water, but there will be plenty of water on the air waves, with Network for New Music and music from the British Isles, this afternoon from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

January 14, 2020
Scrooge Opera & Christmas Carols on Classical Network

If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!

Be that as it may, I hope you’ll join me this afternoon on The Classical Network for a conversation with documentarian H. Paul Moon of Zen Violence Films, who dropped by the WWFM studios last week to talk about the release of his latest project, a filmed production of John Deak’s chamber opera, “The Passion of Scrooge.”

The work is a real tour de force for baritone William Sharp, who appears with Washington DC’s 21st Century Consort.

Moon’s film is now available on BluRay and DVD. Learn more about it, when you tune in for our chat – with selections from the opera – beginning at 5 p.m., or by visiting scroogeopera.com

The balance of the hour will be devoted to a complete performance of “On Christmas Night,” a rarely-heard masque, also inspired by Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Prior to that, we’ll remember American composer and pianist Edward MacDowell, on his birthday, with his “Fireside Tales,” and Rita Streich, whom we heard yesterday in Josef Rheinberger’s “The Star of Bethlehem,” on hers. This afternoon, she will present a medley of German language Christmas songs.

At 6:00, it’s another “Music from Marlboro,” with works for Christmas by Wagner and Brahms. There will also be time for a cheerful wind octet by Carl Reinecke.

Fires will roar and winds will blow. I hope you’ll join me for a bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato, this Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 18, 2019
Saint Cecilia Feast Day Music on WWFM

Hail! Bright Cecilia, hail!

November 22 is the feast day of Saint Cecilia – the patron saint of music.

Join me this afternoon at 4:00 on The Classical Network, as we celebrate with musical tributes by William Boyce, Benjamin Britten, Anthony Collins, Charles Gounod, George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell, Joaquin Rodrigo, and Alessandro Scarlatti. We’ll also hear the “Serenade to Music” by Ralph Vaughan Williams and “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra,” narrated by Sean Connery.

At 6:00, look ahead to Thanksgiving on “Picture Perfect,” with selections from “Friendly Persuasion” (Dimitri Tiomkin), “Our Town” (Aaron Copland), “Plymouth Adventure” (Miklós Rózsa), and the building-the-barn sequence from “Witness” (Maurice Jarre).

There’s always plenty to be thankful for, musically speaking, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 22, 2019
Vaughan Williams A Birthday & Symphony No 5

Happy birthday, Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of my favorite composers!

Thank you so much for the “Serenade to Music,” “The Lark Ascending,” the “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,” “Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus,” “The Wasps,” the “Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1,” the “English Folk Song Suite,” the “Fantasia on Christmas Carols,” “Five Mystical Songs,” the “Charterhouse Suite,” the “Concerto Grosso,” the “Old King Cole” ballet, “Household Music,” “Hugh the Drover,” “Sir John in Love,” and too many others to enumerate.

Of your nine symphonies, I certainly have my preferences. Each of them holds its own particular delight – even the ones that are served up harsh or leave us hanging, with big questions about their, and our, ultimate destinations. Collectively, they form a surprisingly disparate body of work, belying your reputation as a pastoralist.

That said, if I want to find solace or to be uplifted, I always gravitate to the Fifth.

For me, the facts surrounding the Fifth’s creation make it all the more moving. It’s frequently been remarked upon that the symphony shares a certain kinship with your opera, “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” which you worked at for decades and still remained incomplete.

At first, when you heard the symphony played by friends in its two-piano reduction, you had doubts as to its value. That’s a little ironic for a work that is so imbued with the power of faith. And by faith, I don’t mean religion. It’s well-known to most that in your maturity you embraced what you described as a “cheerful agnosticism” (downgraded from earlier assertions of atheism). When it was finally performed by an orchestra, you realized your reservations were unfounded.

You dedicated the work to Jean Sibelius, “without permission.” However, when Sibelius heard the piece, he too was delighted. He wrote to Adrian Boult, “This symphony is a marvelous work… the dedication made me feel proud and grateful… I wonder if Dr. Williams has any idea of the pleasure he has given me?”

The symphony was introduced in June of 1943, at the height of the blitz. German bombs rained down on London after dark, so the concert had to be held in the afternoon. We can only imagine what that must have been like – the nightly danger, the disruption of conveniences, the loss of life, the injuries, the rationing, the rubble, the noise, the fear – and then the power of this music, music of fortitude and optimism, and what affect it must have had on its first audiences. Here was assurance that everything was going to be all right. This too would pass. Beyond the bombs, beyond Hitler, England would endure, as would other things. Larger things. Immutable things.

Who knew that you, the cheerful agnostic, would turn out to be a prophet?

Here you are conducting, at the age of 80, your Symphony No. 5.

October 12, 2019
RVW Birthday Dett Celebration & De Palma Scores

Tomorrow is the birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Tune in this afternoon to The Classical Network to hear selections from a new CD issued on Dutton Vocalion Records that features what is billed as the world premiere recording of RVW’s incidental music to a radio presentation of Shakespeare’s “Richard II.”

Also, we’ll celebrate the anniversary of the birth of R. Nathaniel Dett. Dett was born in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario. His grandfather was an escaped slave who found freedom on the Underground Railroad. Dett became an important figure in the American music of his time. Yet he is remembered today, if at all, for a lone piano suite, “In the Bottoms,” or perhaps only for its two-minute concluding dance, “Juba,” which was championed by Percy Grainger, among others.

Clipper Erickson, piano, was the first to record all of Dett’s keyboard works. His performances have been collected on an album titled “My Cup Runneth Over,” on Navona Records, a division of PARMA Recordings.

If you find this music attractive, you can hear more by joining Clipper, soprano Rochelle Ellis, and the Westminster Jubilee Sings, at Westminster Choir College’s Bristol Chapel, tonight at 7:30, for an R. Nathaniel Dett birthday blow-out. Get there early, at 6:45, to attend a pre-concert talk.

Back to radio: Coming up at 6:00 this evening, it’s music from the suspense, horror, and crime thrillers of director Brian De Palma, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies. We’ll hear selections by Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Pino Donaggio, and Ennio Morricone.

The week ends strong, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 11, 2019

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