Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Richard Strauss

Strauss Disses Schoenberg Winter of Discontent

Richard Strauss being catty about Schoenberg (snow-related).

January 25, 2016
Poetry & Music on WPRB

“Is it the words that move my heart or the music that speaks more strongly? It’s fruitless to try to separate them. Words and music are fused into one… One art redeemed by the other!”

– The Countess, Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio”

I hope you’ll join me this morning on WPRB, when and where there will be plenty of words and music to ponder, as we listen to as much music inspired by poetry and poets as we possibly can in five hours.

It will be a veritable Norton Anthology of works influenced by Matthew Arnold, William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E.E. Cummings, A.E. Houseman, Victor Hugo, Ben Johnson, Edward Lear, Federico Garcia Lorca, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Pushkin, Friedrich Schiller, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wallace Stevens and William Butler Yeats.

You’ll hear choral music, song, overtures and symphonic poems, with Sir John Gielgud reading the texts by Aloysius Bertrand that inspired Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit.”

J.D. Burnett, founder and artistic director of the Kinnara Ensemble, will drop by at around 10:00. He’ll tell us a little bit about the choir’s concert at The Hun School of Princeton this Saturday at 8 p.m., when the group will present Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” along with works by Johannes Brahms and others.

Sharpen your quills – it’s all about poetry and music this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’re starving for our art on Classic Ross Amico.

October 1, 2015
Strauss’s 10 Conducting Commandments
Since I mentioned these on the air, I figured I’d copy them here for your edification: Richard Strauss’ “Ten Golden Rules for the Album of a Young Conductor” (1927):
1. Remember that you are making music not to amuse yourself, but to delight your audience.
2. You should not perspire when conducting. Only the audience should get warm.
3. Conduct “Salome” and “Elektra” as if they were by Mendelssohn: Fairy music.
4. Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a brief glance to give an important cue.
5. But never let the horns and woodwinds out of your sight. If you can hear them at all, they are still too strong.
6. If you think that the brass is now blowing hard enough, tone it down another shade or two.
7. It is not enough that you yourself should hear every word the soloist sings. You should know it by heart anyway. The audience must be able to follow without effort. If they do not understand the words, they will go to sleep.
8. Always accompany the singer in such a way that he can sing without effort.
9. When you think you have reached the limits of prestissimo, double the pace. (Amended in 1948: “Today I should like to amend this: take the tempo half as fast.”)
10. If you follow these rules carefully, you will, with your fine gifts and your great accomplishments, always be the darling of your listeners.
PHOTO: Strauss, there is method in his madness
June 11, 2015
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

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