Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Remembering Musicians We Lost in 2017

Great singers (Nicolai Gedda, Roberta Peters, Kurt Moll, Dmitri Hvorostovsky); notable conductors (Georges Prêtre, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Louis Frémaux, Jiří Bělohlávek); talented composers (Veljo Tormis, Francis Thorne, Gordon Langford, Godfrey Schroth); and outstanding instrumentalists (Gervase de Peyer, Paul Zukofsky, Zuzana Růžičková), including not one, but two concertmasters of the Berlin Philharmonic (Thomas Brandis, Rainer Kussmaul) – these are only some of those we lost in 2017.

This Thursday morning (and probably next) on WPRB, we’ll honor a good many artists who are no longer with us, but who, fortunately for us, left behind a wealth of recordings.

The focus will be on musicians who traded their instruments for the harp, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for Classic Ross Amico.

December 28, 2017
Remembering Musicians We Lost in 2018 on WPRB

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time for some of us to examine all the ways we’ve screwed up our lives (hopefully not irreparably) and to resolve to do better in 2018.

More objectively, it’s also a time to remember all of those who have shuffled off this mortal coil.

Fortunately for you, if you join me this Thursday morning on WPRB, the emphasis will be on the latter, as we listen to recordings by some of the musicians who have enriched our world through their artistry.

Like last year, this one may turn out to be a two-parter. While it’s sad to reflect that so many talented individuals have moved on to the Great Concert Hall in the Sky, I am delighted to be able to share some of their wonderful, representative performances with you.

Join me in celebrating the artists we lost in 2018, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It’s one of the few things left to celebrate this time of year, on Classic Ross Amico.

December 27, 2017
Merlin in Bethlehem A Christmas Music Surprise

Who likes when Merlin shows up in the Christmas story? We all do, of course!

Join me around 9:00 this Thursday morning on WPRB to hear Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” a choral drama adapted from the 14th century Coventry Nativity Play. Composed in 1915, and written very much in the English pastoral idiom, the work incorporates settings of familiar carols, such as “O come, all ye faithful” and “The Holly and the Ivy.”

Taking a page from Richard Wagner, Boughton composed a cycle of five operas on Arthurian themes and started a Glastonbury Festival, in the style of Bayreuth. Alas, neither the operas nor the festival, as it was originally conceived, have endured.

In Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” the shepherds bear gifts of a penny whistle, a hat, and a pair of warm mittens. The Three Wise Men hobnob with Herod, Zarathustra, and, yes, Merlin. If you gravitate toward the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, you’re bound to fall under the work’s disarming spell.

It’s one of our featured highlights this Thursday morning, from 6 to 11 EST, as we anticipate the winter solstice (at 11:28), on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

December 21, 2017
Yule Solstice Music Bonfires on WPRB

On this shortest day, as the warg Sköll, descendent of unruly Fenrir, chases down the sun, we’ll boldly feast, game, share stories, and quaff mead. Most of all, there will bonfires – lots of bonfires. This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll anticipate the arrival of winter (at 11:28 EST) by cutting mistletoe, decking the halls, and filling the air waves with festive and reflective music for the solstice.

Heathen impulses will be tempered by a couple of large-scale, more-or-less Christian choral works. In the 7:00 hour, we’ll hear “The Star of Bethlehem,” by everyone’s favorite composer from Lichtenstein, Josef Rheinberger, in a performance featuring Rita Streich and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Then at 9:00, we’ll enjoy “Bethlehem,” by English composer Rutland Boughton, a work inspired by the 14th century Coventry Mystery Play. How else to incorporate Merlin into the Christmas story?

There will also be plenty of Swedish folk high jinks, a shape-shifting, vampiric reindeer from Lapland, a serenade or two to the Boar’s Head from Great Britain, and abundant selections from “The Christmas Revels.”

Get ready to sacrifice five hours to the Yule gods, even as we celebrate the arrival of the Baby Jesus, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. I think Yule love it, on Classic Ross Amico.

December 21, 2017
Welcome Yule Celebrate the Winter Solstice on WPRB

Welcome Yule!

No matter what your personal creed, the real reason for the season is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day, which is why this time of year so many of the world’s cultures pull out all the stops with music, drink, evergreen, gifts, and bizarre localized customs like the Yule Goat (see my post of Dec. 9). It all goes back to man’s primordial desire to restore the sun and drive the cold winter away.

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll mark the year’s shortest day – and the longest night – with abundant reflection and revelry, all distilled into a cheering playlist of music for midwinter.

Of course, the morning will be heavily slanted toward the reigning midwinter festival of Christmas. There will be at least two large-scale Christmas works for chorus and orchestra – Josef Rheinberger’s “The Star of Bethlehem” and Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem” – to anchor all the pagan tomfoolery.

I hope you’ll join me in piling the wood high, in anticipation of a midwinter bonfire, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. If all goes as planned, it should go something like this, on Classic Ross Amico:

December 21, 2017

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