Classic Ross Amico

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Furtwängler & Conducting Composers on WPRB

Wilhelm Furtwängler is one of those conductors who seems to inspire near-fanaticism in many of his admirers. Set up as the polar opposite of Arturo Toscanini, who loved to declare absolute devotion to the score (whether it happened to be true or not), Furtwängler took what was on the page as the mere foundation on which to erect towering cathedrals in the sound.

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll get to hear what happens when the architect and builder happen to be the same, as Wilhelm Furtwängler conducts his Symphony No. 2. We’ll enjoy it on the anniversary of Furtwängler’s birth.

In addition, there will be original compositions by other musicians best recognized by posterity as conductors – people like Antal Doráti, Otto Klemperer, Igor Markevitch, Paul Paray, André Previn, Evgeny Svetlanov, and George Szell.

I hope you’ll join me, as conductors compose themselves, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. The composers’ conduct will definitely be most becoming, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 24, 2018
Symphony or Concerto Genre Bending Music

Hector Berlioz’s “Harold in Italy” (viola and orchestra). Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 “The Age of Anxiety” (piano and orchestra). Benjamin Britten’s Cello Symphony. These genre-bending works break all the rules. Are they symphonies or concertos?

We won’t be hearing any of these this Thursday morning on WPRB, though we will be listening to a full playlist of “concertos” for orchestra and “symphonies” for orchestra with prominent part for solo instrumentalist.

Generally speaking, the concerto for orchestra is a large-scale piece in which the various sections of an orchestra are each given an opportunity to shine. The symphonies with a prominent solo instrument? Well, there is really is no rule for that. Why Vincent d’Indy’s “Symphony on a French Mountain Air,” for piano and orchestra, is not a concerto is anyone’s guess, beyond the French custom, usually applied to organ works, of calling concertos symphonies. Call it Gallic contrarianism, if you will.

Highlights of the morning will include music by one-time Classic Ross Amico guest Zhou Tian, whose Concerto for Orchestra has been nominated in the category of “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” for this year’s Grammy Awards; organ “symphonies” by Alexandre Guilmant and Aaron Copland; a concerto “symphonique” for piano and orchestra by Henry Charles Litolff; and a “symphony” for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan.

Prepare yourself for identity crises and plenty of disorientation, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Then, why should things be different this week from any other, on Classic Ross Amico?

January 18, 2018
Musical Hybrids on WPRB

Ah, humans… compelled to classify everything. The more confusing the world gets, the more we try to understand. But what’s the alternative?

At a time when everything seems so fluid – language, mores, sexuality, and even gender – I thought we’d take a look at some equally perplexing musical hybrids this Thursday morning on WPRB.

Concertos are usually understood to be works for solo instrument and orchestra. However, we’ll be focusing on concertos for orchestra alone. Likewise, symphonies are ordinarily purely orchestral endeavors. We’ll hear symphonies for orchestra and prominent instrumental soloist.

Among our featured highlights will be the Concerto for Orchestra – now Grammy-nominated for “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” – by one-time Classic Ross Amico guest Zhou Tian; a symphony for solo piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan; an organ symphony by Aaron Copland, and a “concerto symphonique” for piano and orchestra by Henry Charles Litolff.

We may not know whether it’s fish or fowl, but whatever it is I’ll be tossing it in the blender, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It will be another breakfast of champions, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 18, 2018
Snowpocalypse Cancels Radio Show Old Man Retreats

I didn’t learn until this afternoon about the latest snowpocalypse that’s barreling up the coast and expected to make life a living hell for everyone in its wake for the next 36 hours or more.

So I hope you don’t mind if I err on the side of caution and defer to those intrepid, younger souls who live within walking distance of Princeton University campus to do whatever they will, this Thursday morning on WPRB 103.3 FM. The outgoing and incoming program directors are working hard to inspire anyone with snowshoes and a dream to commit to a few hours in front of the microphone.

Me? I plan to burrow in deep with a book and get reacquainted with the insides of my eyelids. Hey, I’ve done my share of driving in snow. Back in the days when I was still considered an essential link in the Emergency Broadcast System, I did so even after the highways were officially closed. That was then. This is now.

Thank you, WPRB, for your understanding, and to whoever steps up and into my snow boots tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, Classic Ross Amico salutes you.

January 4, 2018
Remembering Musicians We Lost in 2017

Great singers (Nicolai Gedda, Roberta Peters, Kurt Moll, Dmitri Hvorostovsky); notable conductors (Georges Prêtre, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Louis Frémaux, Jiří Bělohlávek); talented composers (Veljo Tormis, Francis Thorne, Gordon Langford, Godfrey Schroth); and outstanding instrumentalists (Gervase de Peyer, Paul Zukofsky, Zuzana Růžičková), including not one, but two concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic (Thomas Brandis, Rainer Kussmaul) – these are only some of those we lost in 2017.

This Thursday morning (and probably next) on WPRB, we’ll honor a good many artists who are no longer with us, but who, fortunately for us, left behind a wealth of recordings.

The focus will be on musicians who traded their instruments for the harp, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for Classic Ross Amico.

December 28, 2017

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