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Tag: Samuel Barber

Samuel Barber Absolute Beauty Aired on WHYY

Everybody knows Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” But how much do we really know about the composer and the man? Join me this afternoon for a conversation with filmmaker H. Paul Moon, who will be joining me in the studio to talk about his new documentary, “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty”, which will air locally on WHYY Philadelphia tomorrow night (Saturday) at 8 p.m.

Barber, born in West Chester, PA, and a graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, is something of a native son. He must be ranked in the top five of all American composers, but of those, his music must be the most deeply personal. I hope you’ll join me for a conversation with H. Paul Moon this afternoon at 4:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Watch the trailer for “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty,” and be enticed: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/barber

July 14, 2017
Marlboro Music Chamber Series on WWFM

During the final hour of my shift this evening on WWFM, I’ll be previewing a special series that will commence next Wednesday, featuring chamber music performances from Marlboro Music.

Marlboro Music is the noted Vermont retreat, where the world’s most acclaimed and most promising artists come together for inspired music-making. The festival can be enjoyed over five weekends, from mid-July to mid-August. This year’s festival will be held from July 15 to August 13, on the campus of Marlboro College. You can find out more about Marlboro Music at marlboromusic.org.

This week, we’ll hear commercially issued recordings of performances from Marlboro, including Samuel Barber’s “Summer Music,” with Marlboro wind players, captured in 1981, and Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 100, D. 929, featuring Marlboro co-founders Adolf Busch, Herman Busch and Rudolf Serkin, recorded in 1951.

Future weeks will bring privileged access to the Marlboro archives, which include many, many performances never before heard beyond the confines of the festival, all of them featuring chamber music luminaries and stars of tomorrow.

Join me for “Music from Marlboro” beginning next Wednesday, July 12, at 6 p.m. EDT. The preview will air this evening at 6, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Marlboro founders Marcel Moyse, Louis Moyse, Rudolf Serkin, Blanche Moyse, Adolf Busch, Herman Busch (with cellist Nathan Chaikin second from left)

July 5, 2017
Memorial Day Remembrance on The Classical Network

If the rain is keeping you indoors on this Memorial Day, consider tuning in to The Classical Network this afternoon for some musical remembrances of those who laid down their lives in war. We’ll also have a nostalgic diversion by Samuel Barber, who served in the U.S. Army Air Force; an operatic intermezzo by Enrique Granados, who died after his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine; and nods to the birthday anniversaries of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Isaac Albeniz, and Frederick Septimus Kelly, who survived injury at Gallipoli only to be killed on the Somme.

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

More about “In Flanders Fields” and the history of the poppy as “flower of remembrance” here:

http://www.womensoutdoornews.com/2017/05/memorial-day-flanders-fields/

May 29, 2017
Military Symphonies for Memorial Day

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” in anticipation of Memorial Day, we’ll have two symphonies composed for the armed forces.

Morton Gould wrote his Symphony No. 4 for the United States Military Academy at West Point. It was his first large scale piece for symphonic band. The score calls for a “marching machine,” but the recording we’ll hear, issued on the Mercury label, employs the feet of 120 musicians of the Eastman School Symphony Band. Frederick Fennell directs the Eastman Wind Ensemble.

Samuel Barber composed his Symphony No. 2 in 1943, while he was serving in the U.S. Army Air Force. 20 years later, he revised and published the slow movement as a separate opus, titled “Night Flight,” and then jettisoned – and actually tried to destroy – the rest. The work was reconstituted after the composer’s death, and is now back in circulation. We’ll hear a recording with Marin Alsop and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

I hope you’ll join me for “Orchestrated Maneuvers” – American military symphonies for Memorial Day – tonight at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Corporal Samuel Barber with the score of his Second Symphony

May 28, 2017
Samuel Barber on WWFM Today

It’s unusual for me to do double-duty on Thursday, but that’s exactly what will happen today, as I scoot over for an afternoon of production work and live broadcasting at WWFM. (I’m generally there anyway, trying to get my recorded programs in for the weekend.)

Today, we’ll celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the great American composer, Samuel Barber (b. 1910). It’s a beautiful day, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if we have our share of American romantics. We’ll also hear from Czech composer Josef Mysliveček (b. 1737). Mysliveček was a close friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so that will take care of the classicism.

Eat your heart out, Tony Stark. I’m pulling the iron man shift today, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network at wwfm.org.

Samuel Barber contemplates Iron Man. (Please don’t sue me, Marvel.)

March 9, 2017

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