Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Romeo Cascarino

William Penn: Music From Philadelphia

This Sunday night on Then we’ll turn to “The Lost Chord,” round out your Thanksgiving weekend with two works inspired by William Penn.

An early hero of American liberty, Penn founded Philadelphia (the “City of Brotherly Love”), named the state of Pennsylvania in honor of his father, and signed a landmark treaty with the Lenape. He was enshrined in music by at least two Philadelphia composers.

We’ll hear a selection from the opera “William Penn,” by Romeo Cascarino. Cascarino, born in South Philadelphia in 1922, was largely self-taught as a composer. His fascination with Penn took root at an early age, when he was moved by a plaque posted on City Hall of “Penn’s Prayer for Philadelphia.” He first set the Prayer to music as a choral work in 1950, and later set the Treaty, as well.

These led naturally to the conception of an opera on a grand scale, for which Cascarino asked poet Peg Gwynn to craft a libretto, based on Penn’s life and writings. He spent the next quarter century crafting his magnum opus, even as he composed other works and continued to teach harmony and composition at Philadelphia’s now-defunct Combs College of Music.

The opera was heard twice in concert, performed by the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia at Drexel University, in 1975 and 1977. Tom DiNardo, critic for the Philadelphia Bulletin, recognized the exceptional quality of the music, and surprised the composer by arranging for a couple of staged performances at the Academy of Music in 1982.

The chorus is especially prominent, but arguably the most powerful moments are the intimate glimpses of Penn with his family. These were the days of immense and hazardous ocean voyages, remember, and when a man went to sea, there was no telling when – or even if – he’d be reunited with his loved ones. This knowledge lends an added poignancy to our experience of Penn the man.

Tonight, Metropolitan Opera singer John Cheek assumes the title role, and Penn’s wife, Gulielma, is portrayed by Dolores Ferraro, then married to the composer.

The second half of the program will be devoted to “Four Squares of Philadelphia,” by Louis Gesensway. Gesensway was born in Latvia in 1906. A violin prodigy, he was one of the founders of the Toronto Symphony. He arrived in Philadelphia, at the age of 19, where he played in the Philadelphia Orchestra under both Stokowski and Ormandy.

In his mid-20s, he took a leave of absence to study composition with Zoltán Kodály. “Four Squares” was described by the composer as a “symphonic poem for large orchestra, narrator and street criers.”

The piece opens with Penn’s prayer for the city and celebrates the distinctive characteristics of each of the public spaces he planned: “Washington Square” in early morning during Colonial times, with street criers hawking their wares; “Rittenhouse Square” on a bright and cheerful afternoon; “Logan Square” with its fountains at dusk; and “Franklin Square” at night, evocative of noisy bridge traffic, with a side excursion into Chinatown and musical interjections from the honky-tonk joints located around the square in the 1950s.

We’ll hear it performed by Gesensway’s colleagues of the Philadelphia Orchestra, with Eugene Ormandy conducting.

Penn’s influence is not stationary. As the days grow shorter and the nights colder, warm yourself with a nice steaming bowl of “Quaker Notes,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 28, 2021
Romeo Cascarino Rediscovering a Forgotten Composer

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Why does no one play your music?

It is well-crafted. It has heart. It is full of beauty.

On the 99th birthday of Romeo Cascarino, I am asking, is there no one out there who might be able to program something to mark the composer’s centenary in 2022?

Cascarino was born into a rough neighborhood in South Philadelphia in 1922. With a name like Romeo, you have to learn how to use your fists! While navigating the School of Hard Knocks, he taught himself privately, gleaning the mechanics of music theory from books checked out of the Free Library of Philadelphia. He was discovered by composer Paul Nordoff, who recognized his genius, and the two became more like friends than master-disciple.

For many years, Cascarino was a professor of composition at Combs College of Music. The recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, he labored at his magnum opus, the opera “William Penn,” for the better part of three decades. The work received its premiere at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1982 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city.

Metropolitan Opera singer bass-baritone John Cheek sang the title role, Cascarino’s wife, soprano Dolores Ferraro, created the part of Penn’s wife, Gulielma, and Christofer Macatsoris conducted the Philadelphia Singers and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.

Cascarino died in 2002, at the age of 79. He left too little music. Fortunately, every piece is a treasure. A seductive, twilit beauty informs much of his output. If only he had completed “William Penn” 30 years earlier, I believe it would be as highly-regarded as Carlisle Floyd’s “Susanna” or Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.”

Here’s hoping for a Cascarino revival, however modest, in 2022.

“Pygmalion,” conducted by JoAnn Falletta

“The Acadian Land,” performed by members of The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia

The concise Bassoon Sonata, written for Cascarino’s Army buddy, Sol Schoenbach, for twenty years principal bassoonist of The Philadelphia Orchestra

“Blades of Grass” for English horn and orchestra, after Carl Sandburg, performed by Orchestra 2001

“Little Blue Pigeon,” from “Pathways of Love,” sung by Dolores Ferraro

“Meditation and Elegy,” inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” performed by Philadelphia Sinfonia

Bruce Duffie interviews the composer

http://www.kcstudio.com/cascarino2.html

A list of his works

https://romeocascarino.org/list_of_works.html

September 28, 2021
Sandburg’s America Music for Memorial Day

Carl Sandburg was the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry, and a third for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was also known for his 1927 anthology “The American Songbag,” espousing our native folk song and anticipating the folk song revivals the 1940s and ‘60s. On top of everything else, he was awarded a Grammy for his recording of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” When Sandburg died in 1967, at the age of 89, Lyndon Johnson observed that “Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He WAS America.”

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear music inspired by this popular – and populist – figure, with two works especially appropriate for Memorial Day and, in between, a piece after a poem evocative of the American heartland.

Philadelphia composer Romeo Cascarino (1922-2002), who had served in the U.S. Army, composed a plaintive elegy, “Blades of Grass,” in 1945, just after World War II. He expressed a preference, on several occasions, that Sandburg’s poem “Grass” be read before performances. You’re probably familiar with it:

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) was born in Grand Rapids, MI, and spent much of his career in the Midwest. Sometimes referred to as the “Dean of American church music,” he was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 for his cantata, “The Canticle of the Sun.”

The published score of his symphonic poem after Sandburg, titled “Prairie,” from 1929, bears the following lines:

“Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?

“Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?”

Last, but certainly not least, Roy Harris, who shared Lincoln’s birthday (though born 89 years later), was reared in a log cabin in Lincoln County, OK, only adding to his sense of destiny. Indeed, he went on to become one of America’s greatest composers.

Harris’ Symphony No. 6 is subtitled “Gettysburg.” It’s one of a number of works the composer wrote with a Lincoln connection. Each movement of the symphony bears a superscription taken from the Gettysburg Address: the first, “Awakening (‘Fourscore and seven years ago…’);” the second, “Conflict (‘Now we are engaged in a great civil war…’);” the third, “Dedication (‘We are met on a great battlefield of that war…’);” and the fourth, “Affirmation (‘…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…’).”

Prior to composing the work, Harris read – you guessed it – Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln.

I hope you’ll join me for “Lincoln Logger,” an hour of music inspired by Carl Sandburg, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Although not on tonight’s show, here, as an added bonus, is Sandburg narrating Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait”:

May 24, 2020
Romeo Cascarino Philly’s Unsung Opera Genius

With a name like Romeo, he had to learn to use his fists.

Composer Romeo Cascarino grew up in an unforgiving neighborhood in South Philadelphia. While navigating the School of Hard Knocks, he taught himself privately, gleaning the mechanics of music theory from books checked out of the Free Library of Philadelphia. He was discovered by composer Paul Nordoff, who recognized his genius, and the two became more friends than master-disciple.

For many years, Cascarino was a professor of composition at Combs College of Music. The recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships, he labored at his magnum opus, the opera “William Penn,” for the better part of three decades. The work received its premiere at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music in 1982 to mark the 300th anniversary of the founding of the city.

Metropolitan Opera singer bass-baritone John Cheek sang the title role, Cascarino’s wife, soprano Dolores Ferraro, created the part of Gulielma, Penn’s wife, and Christofer Macatsoris conducted the Philadelphia Singers and the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia.

Cascarino died in 2002; September 28th would have been his 95th birthday. Ferraro and arts writer Tom DiNardo sat down with me in 2012 to share their reminiscences and insights into Cascarino the man and the composer. I’ve assembled some of their remarks and punctuated the conversation with rare audio from the family archives, as well as studio recordings made by JoAnn Falletta and Sol Schoenbach, former principle bassoonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

A seductive, twilit beauty informs much of Cascarino’s output. If only he had completed “William Penn” 30 years earlier, I believe it would have been as well known as Carlisle Floyd’s “Susanna” or Robert Ward’s “The Crucible.”

I hope you’ll join me for a rebroadcast of “Remembering Romeo,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

September 24, 2017
Romeo Cascarino’s William Penn Opera

There’s an autumnal radiance about Romeo Cascarino’s best music. His depiction of the treaty with the Lenape, which forms the climax of his magnum opus, “William Penn,” expertly captures the mood of Benjamin West’s famous painting. Enjoy the complete opera, with commentary by my special guest, Dolores Cascarino, the composer’s widow – who created the role of Gulielma, Penn’s wife, opposite Metropolitan Opera bass-baritone John Cheek – this morning, beginning at 7:00 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

November 20, 2016

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