Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Early Music Returns to WPRB

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” wrote George Santayana.

To which Kurt Vonnegut responded, “I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.”

This Sunday morning on WPRB, we’ll have music by contemporary composers – that is to say, composers active within the last 80 years, give or take – who remember the past quite well, but who opt to repeat it anyway, though with delightful variations.

In honor of Early Music Month, we’ll gaze into a distant mirror – make that a funhouse mirror – glimpsing courtly dances, Gregorian chant, madrigals, and hymn tunes, transformed by “contemporary” sensibilities.

Among the morning’s highlights will be Princeton composer Paul Lansky’s “Semi-Suite” for guitar, completed in 1998, music that loosely, wittily, and, ultimately, movingly evokes dance suites of the Baroque Era; and the transporting “Vespers” of 2008 by Philadelphia composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith, a work that conjures “the musical flowering of the Protestant Reformation,” as heard in an authoritative performance by The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

Hopefully these will help get you in the mood for this year’s Guild for Early Music Festival, which will be held this Sunday afternoon at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ. This year’s festival will take place on the two stages of the Seward Johnson Center for the Arts, from 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Enjoy mini-concerts for cornetti, dulcians, recorders, and violas da gamba, then take a break to stroll the grounds and grab a cup of coffee — but keep an eye on those peacocks! You’ll find more information at guildforearlymusic.org and groundsforsculpture.org.

Some things never go out of style. What goes around comes around, this Sunday morning from 7 to 10 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Travel back to Merrie Olde Princeton, on Classic Ross Amico.

Early Music America

March 17, 2018
Daylight Saving Time Musical Commiseration

The possibility of stroke is elevated, even as productivity plummets. Sunday drives will become snarled in traffic accidents. Everyone will be moody and depressed.

Sleepers, awake! Welcome to Daylight Saving Time!

Brew yourself an extra strong pot of coffee, and join me on WPRB for a morning of musical commiseration.

Among our featured highlights, Trenton’s own George Antheil will collaborate with George Balanchine on “Dreams.” A female somnambulist will dance across the rooftops with the Moon-Dandy in Erwin Schulhoff’s ballet “Moonstruck.” And Jean Francaix will puzzle over how to change his flower clock in “L’horloge de flore.”

It’s all about lost sleep and syncopated clocks, this Sunday morning from 7 to 10 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. I’m told we’ll get our hour back on November 4. Until then, enjoy the Circadian Apocalypse. If you’re on time, you’re already late, on Classic Ross Amico.

March 11, 2018
Daylight Saving Time Survival Guide

Get ready for the worst day of the year (after New Year’s and Valentine’s Day).

Tomorrow morning, much of the United States will “spring forward” as we enact once again the hideous custom of Daylight Saving Time.

All across the country bleary-eyed folk will adjust their clocks, only to wind up destroying things or injuring themselves because of disrupted sleep cycles. The risk of stroke always spikes the day after the time shift, and productivity plummets on Monday due to worker fatigue. But it’s all worth it, I suppose, just so that we can have a little extra light at the end of the day should we decide to take a walk in the evening.

With this in mind, it may seem rather selfish to recommend that you join the most sleep-deprived of us all (me) this Sunday morning on WPRB, as I present three hours of music about clocks, time, sleep, dreams, sleeplessness, somnambulism, and morning come-too-soon.

But present it I shall, for your consideration, this Sunday from 7 to 10 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. The evenings will be brighter, even as the circles around my eyes grow darker, on Classic Ross Amico.

March 10, 2018
Golden Age of Film Scores on WPRB This Sunday

Holy cow! One of my favorite movies is 80 years-old this year? Then again, that is SO me.

Join me this Sunday morning on WPRB, as we look back on Oscar history – WAY back.

We’ll hear a rare 1938 recording of selections from “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, with Sir Guy of Gisborne himself, Basil Rathbone, the narrator, and Korngold conducting.

Sir Thomas Beecham will direct the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in music by Brian Easdale, written for the 1948 Powell-Pressburger classic, “The Red Shoes.”

And virtually every major composer in Hollywood will come together at the Hollywood Bowl for a concert of now-classic film scores that was originally broadcast on CBS Television in 1963. The event is now looked back upon as “the greatest film music concert in history.” Participants included, among others, Alfred Newman (“How the West Was Won”), David Raksin (“Laura”), Alex North (“Cleopatra”), Johnny Green (“Raintree County”), Franz Waxman (“A Place in the Sun”), Bernard Herrmann (“North by Northwest”), Dimitri Tiomkin (“High Noon”), and Miklos Rozsa (“Ben-Hur”).

An album was released on LP, but understandably the three-hour concert was severely truncated. This was somewhat remedied on a CD-reissue, that included 70 minutes of music. Among the casualties, however, was Elmer Bernstein conducting the theme to “The Magnificent Seven.” We’ll restore that cut when we hear the concert this morning.

Also in the audience was Max Steiner, whose music for “A Summer Place” and “Gone with the Wind” were on the program. “Gone with the Wind” didn’t make the album, but we will more than remedy the exclusion with an extended suite conducted by Steiner himself.

Collectively, these composers earned over sixty Academy Awards and over 300 Oscar nominations.

I hope you’ll travel back with me to a time when Oscar really was gold, this Sunday morning from 7 to 10 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Scores will be settled, on Classic Ross Amico.

More about the legendary “Music in Hollywood” concert here:

http://www.filmmusicsociety.org/news_events/features/2013/092313.html

March 4, 2018
Hollywood’s Golden Age Remembered on WPRB

What the hell happened to Hollywood? As those of us who remember “the way it used to be” brace ourselves for another year of insipid red carpet banter, I thought we’d take a look back, this Sunday morning on WPRB, and revisit a lost era of glamour and dreams by way of recordings of music from Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Join me for highlights from a concert originally broadcast on CBS Television back in 1963. The program, “Music from Hollywood,” was made up of classic film scores mostly conducted by the composers themselves at the Hollywood Bowl. These included “How the West Was Won” (Alfred Newman), “Laura” (David Raksin), “Cleopatra” (Alex North), “Raintree County” (Johnny Green), “A Place in the Sun” (Franz Waxman), “North by Northwest” (Bernard Herrmann), “High Noon” (Dimitri Tiomkin), and “Ben-Hur” (Miklos Rozsa). You couldn’t find that much compositional talent in Hollywood now if you tried.

We’ll also hear a rare 1938 recording of selections from Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Academy Award winning music from “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” with Sir Guy of Gisborne himself, Basil Rathbone, the narrator, and Korngold conducting.

And Sir Thomas Beecham will take the podium for award-winning music by Brian Easdale written for the unnerving Powell-Pressburger classic, “The Red Shoes.”

Get ready to steel yourself for the Oscars with relics of bygone quality, this Sunday morning from 7 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. At what point did they call “class dismissed,” wonders Classic Ross Amico?

March 3, 2018

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