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Tag: The Lost Chord

Musical Wonder Cabinets on The Lost Chord

Cabinets of curiosities, also sometimes referred to as “wonder rooms,” were small collections of extraordinary objects, strange and often fanciful precursors of today’s museums, which attempted to categorize and explain oddities of the natural world. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll have three examples of musical equivalents.

Princeton University professor Dmitri Tymoczko’s “Typecase Treasury” recalls a small table his parents acquired, made from a typecase subdivided into a hundred little compartments. “Each had been filled with a tiny mineralogical curiosity,” he writes, “a strange crystal, a piece of iron pyrite, a shark’s tooth, or a fossilized tribolyte.” He found it a useful metaphor for a multi-movement collection of short pieces, in which he attempts to produce “a sense of form through juxtaposition.”

Grammy Award-winner Michael Colina is perhaps best known for his jazz and Latin projects. However, Colina was classically trained, having studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and then abroad, at the Chigiana Academy, in Sienna, Italy. We’ll hear his Violin Concerto, subtitled “Three Cabinets of Wonder,” a work inspired by Fanny Mendelssohn, the Buddha, and an Amazonian nature spirit.

Finally, we’ll sample just a bit from “Cabinet of Curiosities” by Philadelphia-based composer Robert Moran, who’s something of a wonder himself. “The Hapsburg Kunstkammer” employs graphic notation and is scored for marimba, hairbrush, aluminum foil, bells played with fingers, finger cymbals, telephone bell, vibraphone, rubber ball, celesta and harpsichord.

I hope you’ll join me for “Curiouser and Curiouser,” a tour of musical wonder cabinets, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

More about cabinets of curiosities here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_curiosities

January 14, 2018
WWFM’s Classical New Year’s Eve Celebration

Whether you are on the road this evening or plan to host an intimate gathering at home, if you’re looking for uplifting musical accompaniment to underscore your New Year’s Eve festivities, look no further than The Classical Network. WWFM hosts will prime you for a happy passage into 2018 with a lighthearted playlist engineered to put a smile on your face and a boost to your spirits.

The fun will commence at 8 p.m. with Carl Hemmingsen, who will get things underway with a sparkling overture by Gioachino Rossini. David Osenberg will follow at 9 with assorted dances and festive favorites, including the drinking song from “La traviata.”

My moment to shine will come at 10:00, the usual time slot for “The Lost Chord.” While not officially part of that series, unofficially I will be serving up some unusual musical hors d’oeuvres, with uproarious selections from the Hoffnung Music Festival concerts, some delectable duets from English operetta that I imagine survives only on the periphery of those with very long memories, and a dizzyingly inventive fantasia on “Auld Lang Syne” by British Light Music master Ernest Tomlinson. It is Tomlinson’s tongue-in-cheek assertion that “Auld Lang Syne” is at the root of most of the world’s enduring masterpieces – and he goes on to support his thesis with no less than 152 examples, in just under 20 minutes!

Alice Weiss will cap the evening, starting at 11, with a beloved American rhapsody, a selection of waltzes and marches, some fireworks music, and even a sip of champagne. Then I know you’ll want to stick around for the WWFM midnight countdown.

Raise a glass with The Classical Network. Thanks to all of you who have supported us for our 35th year! If you haven’t yet had a chance to make your gift, consider a year-end contribution in honor of the music that has so enhanced the quality of your life all throughout 2017. If you HAVE supported us, we will still gratefully accept any additional, end-of-the-year, tax-deductible contributions. Either way, do it soon, because at midnight 2017 will turn into a pumpkin! Visit wwfm.org and click on “Donate.”

Again, thank you for being there for WWFM – The Classical Network. We extend all best wishes for a happy and fruitful 2018!

December 31, 2017
Norwegian Composers on The Lost Chord

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord, we’re off to Norway for music by a couple of composers, neither of which are terribly well-known.

Halfdan Cleve (1879-1951) received an unusually strict musical upbringing. His father was an organist, who insisted his son play nothing but Bach until he was 16! The young Cleve later went to Germany, where he received instruction from the Scharwenkas, brothers Philipp and Franz Xaver. The latter, a pupil of Franz Liszt, was regarded as one of the towering keyboard virtuosos of his day.

Cleve became widely known as a composer and pianist, but his popularity waned after World War I. He reacted to the rise of modernism by clinging more firmly to his Norwegian roots, celebrating the Norwegian countryside and its folk idioms in his music. His Violin Sonata of 1919 is reflective of this attitude.

Also from 1919, we’ll hear the Piano Concerto of Eyvind Alnaes (1872-1932), a figure who is known, if at all, for his art songs, some of which were recorded by Kirsten Flagstad and Feodor Chaliapin. Alnaes’ musical language is less overtly “Norwegian” than that of Cleve. In fact, his concerto echoes Brahms and Tchaikovsky, with some interesting suggestions of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 4, which was not completed until seven years later. Did Rach know this work? You can’t a-fjord to miss it!

I hope you’ll join me for “Dark Horse Norsemen,” works by neglected Norwegian composers, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Flagstad sings Alnaes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aT6ZdY320Q

PHOTO: Norwegian horse can’t stop yawning because of “The Lost Chord” late start time

December 3, 2017
Autumnal Music with Bax & Lloyd on WWFM

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we celebrate the eleventh month with music of an autumnal nature. We’ll open with Sir Arnold Bax’s ravishing tone poem, “November Woods,” of 1917. Then we’ll hear a symphony composed in 1981 by the criminally underrated George Lloyd.

Lloyd’s music is invariably well-crafted, even infectious, yet stubbornly tonal. It can often seem a bit old-fashioned, yet compositional integrity and musical good taste never go out of style. He’s certainly a composer well worth getting to know.

Lloyd’s Symphony No. 10, “November Journeys,” was commissioned by the BBC for the Northern Brass Ensemble. The commission coincided with the composer’s exploration by rail of a number of cathedrals. The sounds of the brass in the composer’s head paralleled his experience of taking in the magnificent buildings. At no point was he attempting to conjure an ecclesiastical air, yet he conceded that the second movement reminded him of a Christmas carol.

We’ll have just a little bit of time at the end of the hour, so I’m tossing in Bax’s “Red Autumn,” for two pianos, for good measure. The piece was originally composed in 1912, and though he never orchestrated it, it’s thought that his original intention had been to do so. In any case, it is marked by Bax’s characteristic opulence.

I hope you’ll join me for “Notions Eleven,” music for the eleventh month, this Sunday night at 10:00 EST – did you remember to change your clocks? – on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

November 5, 2017
Cosmic Classical Music for the Eclipse

Tonight on “The Lost Chord,” in anticipation of Monday’s solar eclipse, we look to the heavens, with three works inspired by the cosmos: Joaquin Rodrigo’s “In Search of the Beyond” (dedicated to NASA), Enrique Granados’ “Song of the Stars,” and Kaija Saariaho’s “Orion.” That’s “Creating Space,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

August 20, 2017

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