Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Shakespeare Music on WPRB
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun. At least for today in the Princeton area, with increasing clouds, afternoon showers anticipated, and highs in the upper 50s. The musical forecast, however, is for 100 percent Shakespeare.

We’ll round out our month-long, Thursday morning salute to the Bard with the last of four installments commemorating the quadricentennial of his death, on April 23, 1616. Is the date etched into your memory yet? Fret thee not: the next major anniversary will be the 500th anniversary of his birth, in 2064 – by which time, I fancy, many of us will be able to congratulate him in person.

In this first hour, we’ll have musical greatness thrust upon us, with selections from Ernest Chausson’s “The Tempest,” Gabriel Fauré’s incidental music for “Shylock” (after “The Merchant of Venice”) and Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s merry – and extended – overture for “Twelfth Night.”

Those now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The fewer the listeners, the greater the share of honour, on Classic Ross Amico.

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise.
- “Cymbeline,” Act II, scene 3
BTW: The birders among you might be interested to know that, according to the Scottish geologist Sir Archibald Geikie, in his 1916 book “The Birds of Shakespeare,” the Bard references all of the following in his plays: the Blackbird, Bunting, Buzzard, Chough, Cock, Cormorant, Crow, Cuckoo, Dive-dapper, Dove and Pigeon, Duck, Eagle, Falcon and Sparrowhawk, Finch, Goose, Hedge Sparrow, House Martin, Jackdaw, Jay, Kite, Lapwing, Lark, Loon, Magpie, Nightingale, Osprey, Ostrich, Owl, Parrot, Partridge, Peacock, Pelican, Pheasant, Quail, Raven, Robin, Snipe, Sparrow, Starling, Swallow, Swan, Thrush, Turkey, Vulture, Wagtail, Woodcock and the Wren.

Interestingly, the House Sparrow gets four mentions – in “Hamlet,” “As You Like It,” “The Tempest” and “Troilus and Cressida.”
April 28, 2016
Shakespeare on WPRB This Morning

Roughly two hours to go in our month-of-Thursdays salute to William Shakespeare.

Yet to come: Frank Bridge’s “There is a willow grows aslant a brook,” his atmospheric reflection on the death of Ophelia; Gerald Finzi’s “Let us Garlands bring,” song settings of some of the Bard’s memorable texts; a suite from Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” in a recent recording by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta; and a special treat from the pen of Erich Wolfgang Korngold – his imaginative arrangements of music by Felix Mendelssohn made for a 1935 film version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which starred James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, and a 15 year-old Mickey Rooney as Puck.

How now, spirit! Whither wander thee? It’s all Shakespeare this morning until 11:00 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend…

April 28, 2016
Shakespeare on WPRB Final Show April 28

Time is growing short.

Tomorrow marks the final installment of our four-part salute to William Shakespeare on WPRB. Every Thursday morning in April, we have been honoring the Bard with music inspired by his writings, to mark the 400th anniversary of his shuffling off this mortal coil on April 23, 1616 (also the anniversary of his birth, though 52 years earlier).

We have five hours in which to hear any or all of the following: Frank Bridge’s “There is a willow grows aslant a brook,” Ernest Chausson’s “The Tempest,” Cecil Cole’s “Comedy of Errors Overture,” Gabriel Fauré’s “Shylock,” Gerald Finzi’s “Let us Garlands bring,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” Bedrich Smetana’s “Richard III,” and Johan Wagenaar’s “The Taming of the Shrew Overture,” among others.

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Conscience does make cowards of us all, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 27, 2016
Shakespeare Music Korngold Zemlinsky on WPRB
Right now, we’re listening to some of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music for “Much Ado About Nothing.” Though he wrote it in his early 20s, for a 1919 production of the play in Vienna, the “Korngold sound” is already very much in evidence. It would later serve him well during his time in Hollywood, where he would compose music for films like “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” Later on in the hour, we’ll hear music by Korngold’s teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky, written for a production of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline.”

Around 9:00, we’ll be joined by William Walker of The Princeton Singers, who will tell us all about the choir’s Shakespeare-inspired concerts coming up this Saturday evening at Princeton University Art Museum.

Before the morning is out, we’ll hear Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music” (on a text from “The Merchant of Venice”) and Paul Moravec’s 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning composition, “Tempest Fantasy.” It’s all Shakespeare Thursday mornings until 11:00 EDT, as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death (on April 23, 1616), on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

“Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again. And then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.”
- Caliban, “The Tempest,” Act III, scene 2
April 21, 2016
Shakespeare Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Saturday is the big day. The 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Also the anniversary of his birthday (52 years earlier), allegedly. Have you anything special planned? Back-to-back screenings of the Olivier and Branagh versions of “Henry V?” Falstaff beer pong? A “Hamlet” sleepover?

We’ll do our best to get your creative juices flowing this morning, as we set the scene with the third of four programs devoted to music inspired by the Bard’s plays. Be with me bright and early for Johan Svendsen’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Sir William Walton’s “As You Like It,” and Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” really musical portraits of four female characters from Shakespeare’s plays (Perdita from “The Winter’s Tale,” Viola from “Twelfth Night,” Lady Macbeth from, well, “Macbeth,” and Katherina from “The Taming of the Shrew”). And that’s just in the 6:00 hour!

Before too late, we’ll also have Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Cymbeline” by his teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. By then, you should be sufficiently caffeinated to compose sonnets with a quill.

I’ll be welcoming two guests this morning: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia , who will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about the choir’s Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

Music and sweet poetry agree this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re donning an Elizabethan collar, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 21, 2016

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