Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Schumann

Marlboro Music: Schumann & Brazilian Composers

This week’s “Music from Marlboro” serves up a Robert Schumann sandwich on Brazilian bread. The hour will open with “Five Songs for Voice and Bassoon” by Francisco Mignone, and conclude with the String Quartet No. 6 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. In between will be the “Andante and Variations” by Schumann, scored for the rather peculiar combination of two pianos, two cellos and horn. The husband and wife team of Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir perform.

I hope you’ll join me for more selections from the Marlboro Music archive, this Wednesday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Marlboro School of Music and Festival: Official Page

PHOTO: Schumann pianists Claude Frank and Lilian Kallir, married at Marlboro in 1959 (with pianist Eugene Istomin, their best man, standing left)

July 26, 2017
Schumann’s Birthday Romantic Piano Concertos on WPRB

There will be a battery of Romantic piano concertos this morning on WPRB, as you can probably imagine, as we celebrate the birthday today of Robert Schumann. We’ll be enjoying some of Schumann’s own music, of course, but also representative works by figures he admired and promoted, some of whom numbered among the finest pianists of the day.

At 9:00, we’ll joined by Steven LaCosse, who will be stage directing Beethoven’s only opera, “Fidelio, ” for The Princeton Festival. He’ll tell us a little bit about the production, which will be presented at McCarter Theatre Center on June 18 & 25.

The highlight of the morning may very well be a rarely heard recording from 1954 of Schumann’s “Manfred,” after the dramatic poem of Lord Byron. The overture is rather well known, but Sir Thomas Beecham recorded the entire thing, with narrator, lending his characteristic Beecham touch not only to the performance, but in his editorial decisions, “livening it up,” as it were, with a part-song or two and adding a ballet.

Get ready for a five hour Romantic interlude, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’re ready to tickle some ivories, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: Robert and Clara Schumann get Romantic

June 8, 2017
Schumann’s Faust on WPRB Now

Have you tuned in since 7:00 and thought, “What the hell is he playing?” It’s Robert Schumann’s rarely heard quasi-oratorio “Scenes from Goethe’s ‘Faust.’” We’re celebrating Goethe until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com.

I hope you’ll stick around. Coming up in the 9:00 hour, it’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Don’t sue me, Disney!

August 27, 2015
Song of Love: Schumann, Hepburn, and MGM’s History

The way it was (at least according to MGM):

For Robert Schumann’s birthday, here’s a clip from “Song of Love” (1947), with Paul Henreid as Schumann, Katharine Hepburn as Clara, and Robert Walker as Brahms. It’s also amusing to see Henry Daniell (as Liszt) playing something other than a villain, for a change. That’s Arthur Rubinstein on the soundtrack.

You can watch the complete movie here:

PHOTO: Roll over, Schumann…

June 8, 2015

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