Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Richard Strauss

WPRB: Strauss, Messiaen & Princeton Festival

Here’s an idea of what you can expect to hear if you join me tomorrow morning on WPRB.

Once again, we observe birthdays, belated, in anticipation, or right on the nose, including those of Richard Strauss (born 6/11) and Carlos Chavez (6/13). There will be a nod to Carlisle Floyd (6/11), along with the fulfillment of a request made last week for some American music conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I haven’t quite gotten Carl Nielsen (6/9) out of my system. And we’ll see, we may hit one or two others, as well. It’s been a busy week for birthday anniversaries.

Members of the Assisi Quartet, for 15 years resident quartet of Assisi Performing Arts, will drop by at 9:00, to talk a little bit about Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” The ensemble will perform the work tomorrow night, alongside music of Franz Joseph Haydn, on a 7:30 p.m. concert at Bristol Chapel on the campus of Princeton’s Westminster Choir College.

Richard Tang Yuk will be on hand at 10:00, to tell us about The Princeton Festival, now in progress, and this year’s production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” Tang Yuk will conduct three performances of the opera at McCarter Theatre, on 6/13, 6/21 & 6/28.

Everything is extremely subject to change (I can’t seem to establish a playlist in advance, which makes it challenging since I bring all my own records), but in the best tradition of live radio, we will endeavor to push forward with a modicum of grace.

Tune in tomorrow from 6 to 11 a.m. to WPRB 103.3 FM, or listen online at wprb.com, and keep it classy with Classic Ross Amico.

June 10, 2015
Hansel & Gretel Premieres: Day 24 Opera Advent

ADVENT CALENDAR – DAY 24

The opera “Hansel and Gretel” was given its first performance on this date in 1893, with Richard Strauss conducting at the Hoftheater in Weimar. Engelbert Humperdinck’s magnum opus – which features a sandman, a dew fairy, a witch, and the imminent threat of cannibalism – has been associated with the Christmas season ever since.

The Brothers Grimm inspiration is the best known of a wave of Märchenopern (fairy tale operas) that swept Germany in the 19th century. Less fortunate was Hans Pfitzner’s “Das Christ-Elflein” (“The Christmas Elf”), with its charming mix of Christian and pagan symbols, including the title character, an old tree spirit, Saint Nicholas’ sidekick, Knecht Ruprecht, and even the Christ Child!

Here’s Hans Pfitzner conducting a recording of the overture, in 1927:

And Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with Irmgard Seefried in an excerpt from “Hansel and Gretel,” with Josef Krips conducting, in 1947:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQah7onXhc4

PHOTO: You know what they say, if you can’t stand the heat…

December 24, 2014
Richard Strauss 150th Birthday & “Funiculì”

Today is the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss.

I read an amusing anecdote the other day, purely by coincidence, when I looked up the Neapolitan song “Funiculì, Funiculà.” The song is about a funicular cable car that used to service passengers to Mount Vesuvius before it was predictably destroyed in an eruption in 1944. The music was composed in 1880 by Luigi Denza to lyrics by the journalist Peppino Turco. The song became a huge international success and sold over a million copies.

Richard Strauss, like many, believed the piece to be an authentic Italian folk song, so he cheerfully appropriated it in 1886 for use in his large-scale symphonic fantasy “Aus Italien” (“From Italy”). Denza’s lawyers were not so cheerful. Strauss found himself at the receiving end of a lawsuit, which resulted in the composer having to pay a royalty fee every time the work was performed.

This would be irksome to any composer, but Strauss has always been the butt of sardonic remarks about his love of money. Stravinsky used to spell his name using dollar signs in place of the esses. And this only a few weeks after I posted about his never getting paid for “Josephslegende!”

However, I also came across this long and absorbing reminiscence of Strauss by one of his publishers, who claimed the composer had no business sense at all.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/Roth/Strauss.htm

Is it any wonder that he married someone (the soprano Pauline de Anha) who could keep his life together? Pauline, the daughter of a general, was herself frequently portrayed as a martinet. But she kept Strauss on the straight and narrow, and they loved one another devotedly.

Despite her vigilance, however, the Strauss fortune was twice obliterated by two world wars.

Be that as it may, Strauss was not the only composer to step wrong in regard to “Funiculì, Funiculà.” Rimsky-Korsakov used it as the basis for his “Neapolitan Song,” and Arnold Schoenberg transcribed it for string quartet. Whether Denza ever tried to sue Rimsky-Korsakov is unknown. Schoenberg clearly credited the original composer. Maybe he was just too scary to sue.

At any rate, a happy 150th birthday, Richard Strauss!

June 11, 2014
Richard Strauss 150th Anniversary

Richard Strauss, celebrated for his opulent tone poems and decadent operas, described himself as a “first-class second-rate” composer.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we mark the 150th anniversary of Strauss’ birth (June 11, 1864), with two of his lesser-heard works, the “Festive Prelude” for large orchestra with organ, written in 1913 for the opening of the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the symphonic fragment from the ballet “Josephslegende” (“The Legend of Joseph”), which I discussed in a Facebook entry on May 14, the work’s centenary.

We’ll also hear the composer’s breakout success, “Don Juan,” in a recording from 1929, with Strauss himself conducting, and a contemporaneous song, “Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten,” Op. 19, No. 4, an ardent expression of clandestine love.

That’s “First Among Seconds,” 150 years of Richard Strauss. This Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Thursday at 11; or you can listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

June 7, 2014
Owl Jolson Richard Strauss Oops

Don’t you hate when you write a time-sensitive Facebook post, and then you realize that you had your days mixed up and that you’re actually a week off? That’s precisely what happened to me when writing my appreciation of Richard Strauss to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth on June 11. This is a hazard of working in radio and as a journalist. Everything always has to be ahead.

Anyway, since I’ve already wasted enough time this morning, here’s Owl Jolson.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ijkn_i-love-to-singa_shortfilms

He loves to sing-a about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a.

June 4, 2014

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