Classic Ross Amico

Tag: William Schuman

Childhood Nostalgia in Classical Music

The end of summer can be a time of reminiscence, sentiment, and undefined yearning. The limpid air, the lambent, silvery light of late August imbue one with a sense of nostalgia, swaddled in the gentle melancholy of an idyllic dream. How I feel for the young ‘uns straining against the inescapable vortex of another school year.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear music by four composers who indulged in musical reminiscences of childhood.

William Schuman grew up to become President of Lincoln Center – and one of our country’s most respected symphonists – but his “American Festival Overture” (1939) is permeated by a three-note call-to-play (“Wee-Awk-Eee!”) recollected from his boyhood.

Haskell Small’s “Visions of Childhood” (2011) is a piano cycle in the Robert Schumann “Kinderszenen” mode, again a mature artist reflecting on halcyon days. The suite falls into ten brief movements: “A Long Time Ago,” “Playing Rough,” “A Little Story,” “Feeling Lonely,” “School’s Out,” “Haunted House,” “Frolicking,” “Look at Me!,” “Roller Coaster,” and “Lullaby.”

Charles Ives may have been a radical innovator, but his music is often infused with a nostalgia for the New England of his youth. His Violin Sonata No. 4 (1906-1915, revised in 1942) bears the subtitle, “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting,” a programmatic work that balances hymn tunes and rowdy boyhood high jinks.

Finally, as he entered his eighth decade, George Crumb embarked on a remarkably productive Indian Summer, which resulted in no less than seven volumes of “American Songbooks,” the last completed in 2011, when the composer was 82 years-old. Each volume consists of deeply personal treatments of folk songs and hymns Crumb recollected from his formative years in West Virginia.

We’ll hear selections from “American Songbook III: The River of Life” (2008). By employing his characteristic shades and cross-hatchings by way of an assortment of ear-tickling percussion effects, the composer provides his own commentary on the time-worn source material, lending it both unsuspected depth and an aura of timelessness.

It’s a far cry from “Kinderszenen.” I hope you’ll join me for “Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be” – 20th and 21st century composers look back on childhood – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

August 29, 2021
Forgotten Pulitzer Music: Beyond the Familiar

Beyond Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” and Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3, how many Pulitzer Prize winners are actually known to the average concertgoer? Sure, the operas of Gian Carlo Menotti and Robert Ward get revived from time to time, and Jennifer Higdon has been exceptionally fortunate for a composer in her prime. But most Pulitzer winners tend to languish in relative obscurity.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” in advance of Friday’s announcement of this year’s winners and nominees, we’ll take another look back on Pulitzer history and sample three honored works.

The very earliest recipient in the music category, in 1943, was William Schuman’s “A Free Song.” Schuman sets a text drawn from Walt Whitman’s “Drum Taps,” verse which grew out of the poet’s Civil War experiences, but also spoke with vigor and optimism to a country once again caught in the throes of conflict. The work was recorded for the first time only in 2011.

Also on the program will be music by William Bolcom. Bolcom, who only just turned 83, is a composer at home in all genres. His cabaret recitals with his wife, Joan Morris, have always been great favorites; his rag, “Graceful Ghost,” receives heavy air time around Halloween; and his magnum opus, “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” is a kaleidoscopic, two-and-a-half-hour journey enlivened by bluegrass, country, soul, folk, vaudeville, rock, reggae, and classical influences. We’ll hear selections from Bolcom’s “12 New Etudes for Piano,” the Pulitzer-winner from 1988, performed by the unflappable Marc-André Hamelin.

Finally, we’ll turn to Caroline Shaw and her extraordinary “Partita for 8 Voices,” which was awarded the Pulitzer in 2013. Shaw, the youngest recipient of the prize for music, was only 30 years-old at the time and a doctoral candidate at Princeton University. Her “Partita” navigates a dizzying array of genres and techniques. The piece will be presented in a flabbergastingly virtuosic performance by the a cappella ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Shaw is a founding member.

I hope you’ll join me for an hour of prized Pulitzer music. That’s “Further Pulitzer Surprises,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Caroline Shaw (front left) with Roomful of Teeth

June 6, 2021
Ormandy’s Lost American Legacy Rediscovered

Eugene Ormandy was born Jenő Blau in Budapest in 1899. In 1927, he became a naturalized American citizen and wound up directing the Philadelphia Orchestra for 44 years.

In that capacity, he championed much contemporary music and works by his adopted countrymen – a fact eclipsed by his reputation as a superb interpreter of the 19th century classics.

In fact, much of his American legacy has dropped out of print. In the late 1990s, Albany Records attempted to rectify the situation by reissuing some of Ormandy’s recordings of lesser-heard American music. The series only made it to three volumes, but each one of them is a treasure.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear two selections from these invaluable anthologies. Both are by Pulitzer Prize winners whose music has sadly fallen out of fashion.

William Schuman was the very first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, in 1943, for his “Cantata No. 2, A Free Song.” At the height of his fame, he was also President of Lincoln Center. He was considered such an important figure in American culture, he was even brought on to “What’s My Line?” (Those were the days.)

We’ll hear Schuman’s “Credendum – Article of Faith,” composed in 1955. The work was written in response to the first ever commission by the U.S. government for a symphonic work.

Two years later, the Pulitzer was awarded to Norman Dello Joio, for his “Meditations on Ecclesiastes.” His symphonic suite “Air Power” was adapted from 22 individual scores composed for the CBS television series about the history of aviation. The series ran from November 1956 through the spring of 1957. (Dello Joio would collect his prize in April.) The individual sections were used to underscore segments on the early days of flight, with their barnstormers and daredevils, air battles and war scenes.

I hope you’ll join me for these rarely-heard recordings of American music. Ormandy flies American, on “All-American Ormandy,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

William Schuman on “What’s My Line?” (1962):

“Air Power,” narrated by Walter Cronkite (1956):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKXKTh50USM

November 17, 2019
Rediscovering Copland American Music Icon

I am so happy to rediscover this 30-minute documentary on Aaron Copland. I remember watching it years ago. What an exciting time for American music – and for America – to say nothing of the arts in general. Not that American music does not remain vital. But Copland seems to be the last man standing, in terms of the active repertoire, of that great generation. To catch a Roy Harris or a William Schuman symphony in concert is very rare indeed.

It is the fate of even the greatest composers to be remembered through but a handful of pieces, usually from a particular phase of his or her career. In Copland’s case, it’s pretty much the cowboy music. Some people love it; some are put off by it. Cowboys aren’t exactly “in” right now, and when someone hears “I Ride an Old Paint,” they may not trouble themselves to look beyond the trappings.

But nearly everything Copland wrote is worth hearing – and I’ve heard most of it – even the misfires. Once you get to know him, his sound is immediately identifiable in anything he touched. He had vision, he had craft, and he had integrity.

I love this man, and I love his music, and I love what he did for music. Would that we had someone of his caliber today. Happy birthday, Aaron Copland.

November 14, 2019
Rediscovering Copland American Music Icon

I am so happy to rediscover this 30-minute documentary on Aaron Copland. I remember watching it years ago. What an exciting time for American music – and for America – to say nothing of the arts in general. Not that American music does not remain vital. But Copland seems to be the last man standing, in terms of the active repertoire, of that great generation. To catch a Roy Harris or a William Schuman symphony in concert is very rare indeed.

It is the fate of even the greatest composers to be remembered through but a handful of pieces, usually from a particular phase of his or her career. In Copland’s case, it’s pretty much the cowboy music. Some people love it; some are put off by it. Cowboys aren’t exactly “in” right now, and when someone hears “I Ride an Old Paint,” they may not trouble themselves to look beyond the trappings.

But nearly everything Copland wrote is worth hearing – and I’ve heard most of it – even the misfires. Once you get to know him, his sound is immediately identifiable in anything he touched. He had vision, he had craft, and he had integrity.

I love this man, and I love his music, and I love what he did for music. Would that we had someone of his caliber today. Happy birthday, Aaron Copland.

November 14, 2019

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