Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams & Sibelius Symphonies on WWFM

Self-indulgence alert!

This Monday afternoon, we’ll hear two symphonies: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 8, with its striking use of percussion (no pun intended), and Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 6.

The Vaughan Williams has been playing in my car pretty much incessantly since the composer’s birthday last Thursday. Beyond the “Sinfonia Antarctica” – the Symphony No. 7, with its programmatic associations with the film “Scott of the Antarctic” – we don’t really hear much of Vaughan Williams’ later symphonies. This one is a gem, with its tuned gongs and movement-long showcases for the wind and string sections. It also happens to be the shortest of Vaughan Williams’ symphonies, and, though marked by ambiguity, it seems not to slip into intimations of the unknown (i.e. death) in quite the same way as the Symphonies Nos. 6, 7 & 9 appear to do. That said, the third movement contains a theme that brings to mind the chorale “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” used in Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” Vaughan Williams wrote the work when he was in his early 80s, between 1953 and 1955.

Sibelius’ 6th, completed in 1923, always puts me in an autumnal frame of mind, probably in part because of the composer’s suggested motto: “When shadows lengthen.” Sibelius described the work as “cold spring water;” no doubt an antidote to the contemporary “cocktails,” as he called them, being served up by Igor Stravinsky. It certainly opens with some of the composer’s most hypnotic and gorgeous music. Sibelius said of the work, “The sixth symphony always reminds me of the scent of first snow.” We all know winter comes early to Finland.

We’ll also hear from Hungarian flutist and composer Franz Doppler, an associate of Franz Liszt; Bohemian Baroque master Jan Dismas Zelenka; contemporary Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür; and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, on their birthdays. I hope you’ll join me for autumnal symphonies and more, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Sardanapalus wants all his pleasures at once

October 16, 2017
English Documentary Music: Vaughan Williams & More

It’s not that I don’t have any commercial sense; I just don’t care. If I were in it for the money, I’d be in another line of work. Anyway, if it moves me or interests me, I am pretty sure it will interest some of you. After all, what could be more engaging than an hour of… ENGLISH DOCUMENTARY MUSIC?

This week on “Picture Perfect,” though perhaps not exactly by popular demand, we’ll listen to four examples of such scores.

In England, unlike in the United States, there is no demarcation between “film composer” and “concert composer.” What is often regarded here as “hack work,” is seen there as just another aspect of what it means to be a working artist. There is no disgrace in a composer earning a living, and some of the nation’s greatest musicians – including those in the employ of the Royal Family – have contributed finely-crafted works to its body of cinema.

With this in mind, we’ll hear music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, from “The People’s Land” (1942), Benjamin Britten, from “The King’s Stamp” (1935), William Alwyn, from “The Green Girdle” (1941), and Sir Arthur Bliss, from “The Royal Palaces of Britain” (1966). All four films are patriotic utterances on distinctly English themes.

You may not have seen any of the movies, but the music is beautiful. I hope you’ll join me for selections from English documentaries, this Friday evening at 6 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

The complete documentary short, “The People’s Land,” is posted on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpRtM8FcBb4

As is “The Green Girdle:”

And “The King’s Stamp”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gSsJHlLFg4

Thank you, Internet!

PHOTO: It’s not about what you think

October 6, 2017
Vaughan Williams Symphony No 5 Hope Amidst Wartime

Oh, Ralph, you’re such the contrarian. You wrote that embodiment of English pastoralism, “The Lark Ascending,” in response to the War to End All Wars. Then in peacetime, in the early 1930s, you composed your most turbulent symphony, the Symphony No. 4. Some say that already you sensed the impending cataclysm of World War II. Then when the war finally hit, you turned around and wrote your most serene symphony.

On this date in 1943, you unveiled your Symphony No. 5. Queen’s Hall lay in ruins from German bombs, so you conducted the London Philharmonic at Royal Albert Hall. Perhaps unexpectedly, the audience that day found itself awash in hope and optimism. In place of the seemingly obligatory bluster of a “wartime symphony,” there was a sense of affirmation in a musical celebration of humanity and tradition. London may be rocked by air raids today, but England, the country and its people, would endure.

You had already long been flirting with your pet project, the opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” for decades. The symphony shares the same sense of faith and optimism in the face of seemingly implacable adversity. The audience emerged into the sunlight on that summer afternoon feeling refreshed and ready to face the future.

The Symphony No. 5 (dedicated, by the way, to Jean Sibelius):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9YoEETzYsE

PHOTO: Vaughan Williams and Foxy in 1942

June 24, 2017
Haydn Serenade A Musical Mystery Unveiled

One of Haydn’s most popular melodies wasn’t by Haydn at all.

Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as we listen to the “Haydn Serenade,” in reality composed by one Roman Hoffstetter. Hoffstetter was a Benedictine monk who evidently admired Hadyn to the point of successfully emulating his style.

It wasn’t until 1965 that musicologist Alan Tyson asserted that the six string quartets published under Haydn’s Op. 3 – including the fifth, which contains the celebrated andante cantabile widely known as the “Serenade” – were indeed the work of Hoffstetter. We’ll enjoy it this afternoon, on this, the anniversary of Hoffstetter’s birth.

We’ll also hear music for guitar and orchestra performed by John Williams (the guitarist, not the film composer), on his birthday, and a substantial fantasy on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ neglected opera, “The Poisoned Kiss.”

Name your poison, from 4 to 7:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 24, 2017
Easter Joy Vaughan Williams & Metaphysical Poets

For me, it just isn’t Easter until I’ve heard Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Five Mystical Songs.” I defy anyone not to be uplifted by the opening song of the cycle, titled, appropriately enough, “Easter.” The songs are settings of poems by George Herbert (1593-1633). This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear a classic recording, with bass-baritone John Shirley-Quirk, as part of a program devoted to the 17th century metaphysical poets.

We’ll also hear William Alwyn’s “Lyra Angelica” of 1954, a harp concerto inspired by Giles Fletcher’s epic poem of 1610, “Christ’s Victorie and Triumph.” The composer regarded it as his most beautiful piece, and I am inclined to agree. The work likely received its widest exposure when Michelle Kwan elected to skate to it during the 1988 Olympics.

Finally, we’ll have a lute song setting by John Hilton of a poem by John Donne, “Wilt thou forgive that sinne,” from an album on the Harmonia Mundi label, titled “The Rags of Time.”

I hope you’ll join me for “Donne Deal” – an hour of metaphysical therapy – this Easter Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 16, 2017

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