Classic Ross Amico

Tag: The Lost Chord

Robert Stallman on The Lost Chord

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” I’ll be joined by flutist Robert Stallman, who will talk about his new album, “Cosi fan Flauti,” recently issued on the Bogner’s Café label.

On top of a lifetime of experience as a performer, Stallman (a former pupil of Jean-Pierre Rampal) has an unusually intimate knowledge of the scores of Mozart, having transcribed some 50 of his works for other combinations involving the flute. A superb album of “new” quintets for flute and strings, derived from some of the piano sonatas, was met with great acclaim upon its release in 2006, in large part for Stallman’s idiomatic grasp of the composer’s method. He went on to perform the same service for Franz Schubert, having arranged some 40 of his works, several of which were issued on another album in 2009.

The centerpiece of his most recent issue is a new “Sinfonia Concertante” for two flutes and orchestra, based on a two-piano sonata, which Stallman transcribed and then had his friend, the English composer Stephen Dodgson (a descendent of Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll), orchestrate. We’ll be listening to this reimagining of Mozart’s original, as well as Dodgson’s own Concerto for Flute and Strings, which was dedicated to Stallman and recorded for the Biddulph Recordings label, back in 1994.

Also on the new album is Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp (with Stallman’s own cadenzas) and two selections from the “Haffner Serenade” performed on the flute.

I hope you’ll join me for “Cosi fan Flauti,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

April 11, 2015
Sir Richard Rodney Bennett Unsung Musical Genius

Sir Richard Rodney Bennett could do it all: from twelve-tone to torch songs, from film music to jazz. Bennett was a brilliant musician who never really seemed to find his niche and continues to be undersold – despite the knighthood he acquired in 1998.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we remember Bennett with an hour of his music, including his later, generously melodic “Partita for Orchestra,” his thornier Violin Concerto from 1975, and selections from his most celebrated film score, that for “Murder on the Orient Express.”

Even so, it hardly encompasses the enormous variety of his pursuits. Late in life, Bennett began to diversify even further, preferring to paint and work in collage.

Howard Ferguson, one of his teachers at the Royal Academy of Music in London, regarded him as perhaps the greatest talent of his generation, though, he opined, he lacked a personal style. I’m not sure I agree with this, but when one is all over the map with one’s interests, one becomes very difficult to pigeonhole.

Bennett died in 2012. I hope you’ll join me, on what would have been his 80th birthday, for “A Nod to Rod,” tonight at 10 ET. A repeat will air Wednesday evening at 6; or you can enjoy it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

PHOTO: The young Bennett, looking very Mod, with skinny tie and cigarette

March 29, 2015
Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Snow Maiden” on “The Lost Chord”

A few days ago, on the occasion of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s birthday anniversary, I was going on about his operas. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” you’ll have a chance to sample one of them, as we welcome spring with selections from “The Snow Maiden.”

Based on an allegorical Russian fairy tale of humans, quasi-mythological creatures, and the eternal forces of nature, it’s the story of a star-crossed love that brings about the end of a 15-year winter. The orchestral suite – which climaxes with the “Dance of the Tumblers” – is fairly popular, but the opera, as with all of Rimsky’s 16 efforts in the form, is virtually unknown in the West.

The recording, on the Capriccio label, which features the Bulgarian Radio Symphony conducted by Stoyan Angelov, doesn’t hold a candle to the best Rimsky opera recordings by conductors like Nikolai Golovanov, but it’s enough to give a taste of what American opera lovers are missing.

I hope you’ll join me for “Thaw of the Wild,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6, or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

March 22, 2015
Irish Music on The Lost Chord

Don’t let the Italian surname fool you; my mother’s people came from Ireland. My own sensibilities tend more toward the Northern climes than to the Mediterranean.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we anticipate St. Patrick’s Day, with music from, and in celebration of, the Emerald Isle. We’ll hear works by Irish composers John Larchet, Philip Hammond, Howard Ferguson and A.J. Potter, and works on Celtic themes by Percy Grainger, Sir Arnold Bax and John Foulds.

I hope you’ll join me for “The Sharing of the Green,” tonight at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or that you’ll enjoy it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.

March 15, 2015
Cupid & Psyche Love’s Timeless Valentine Story

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” with Valentine’s Day fast approaching, we examine two treatments of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, as recounted in Apuleius’ “The Golden Ass.”

Frequently interpreted as an allegory of the elevation of the soul through love, the union of Cupid and Psyche is a beautiful story which has much in common with the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. There is the prohibition against a maid looking upon her “captor,” her catty stepsisters who conspire to trip her up, and the revelation of the “beast” as a kind of prince – in this case, the god of love himself.

In the end, the protagonists pass through travails to triumph, as love conquers all – a nice change of pace, I think you’ll agree, from the usual classical story arc of being transformed into a stag and devoured by hounds, flying too close to the sun and being struck down by Zeus’ thunderbolt, or accidentally eating one’s own children in a meat pie.

We’ll hear music from César Franck’s “Psyche and Eros,” full of romance and ardor, and a completely different approach, which sounds more suited to a ballroom or even an amusement park, “Cupid and Psyche,” by Lord Berners.

Get Psyched for Valentine’s Day this week, with “Slings and Eros,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Wednesday evening at 6; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.

February 7, 2015

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