Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Spooky Music & Beethoven’s 9th on WPRB

After a dark and stormy Wednesday – a totally perfect day for spooky music – Thursday in Princeton is projected to be partly cloudy with a high near 70. Curses!

That said, we’ll do our best to keep Hallowe’en in our hearts, with music about ghosts, vampires, witches, demons, werewolves, headless horsemen, and psychopathic murderers. You know, the kind of thing you’ve come to expect on Thursday mornings.

In addition to all that, we’ll have a treat in the form of a visit from conductor Mark Laycock, who generally posts his comments on this page from Berlin, Germany. Mark is in Princeton this week and has agreed to stop by the studios to say hello at around 9:00 this morning. Mark’s Princeton performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony last year with the Wiener KammerOrchester and Westminster Symphonic Choir, presented in honor of the 100th birthday of William H. Scheide, will air on PBS in November. (Locally, it can be seen on WHYY TV, on November 9 at 9 p.m.)

Children of the night! What beautiful music they’ll make, this morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’ll be handing out dimes in lieu of candy, on Classic Ross Amico.

October 29, 2015
Halloween Radio Show Spooky & Silly Sounds

At the height of the most glorious season comes the greatest of holidays: Hallowe’en. Hallowe’en has always been my favorite. I love it so, I spell it with an apostrophe, just to extend the pleasure.

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll get a head start on the mischief and the incipient tooth decay, with a blend of the chillies and the sillies. We’ll hear spooky works like André Caplet’s “Conte fantastique,” after Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” Henry Cowell’s “The Banshee,” and George Crumb’s “A Haunted Landscape,” alongside such light-hearted treats as Kurt Schwertsik’s “Dracula’s House-and-Court Music,” Frederic Curzon’s “Dance of an Ostracised Imp,” and Billy Mayerl’s “Bats in the Belfry.”

The best preventative for having your tree branches draped with toilet paper is to join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’ll be cutting holes in our parents’ bed sheets and rubbing our cheeks with burnt cork a few days early, on Classic Ross Amico.

October 28, 2015
Autumn Music on WPRB Despite Sunny Skies

With a weather forecast of mostly sunny skies for Princeton and highs in the mid-upper 70s, it would seem that Mother Nature would prefer Indian summer; but from deep within my windowless bunker beneath Bloomberg Hall this morning, I’ll be celebrating autumn.

Tune in to WPRB, and you’ll hear seasonal selections by any of the following (and probably a few others): Cécile Chaminade, Vernon Duke, Gerald Finzi, Morton Gould, Jennifer Higdon, Peter Erasmus Lange-Müller, Rued Langgaard, Billy Mayerl, Joachim Raff, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ottorino Respighi, Tomáš Svoboda, Virgil Thomson, and Peter Warlock.

I’ll be wearing a sweater and sipping hot tea in defiance of the elements from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. Of course, it’s always autumn in my heart on Classic Ross Amico.

October 22, 2015
Rued Langgaard Eccentric Genius Rediscovered

Even by composer standards, Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was a little bit of a strange bird. Despite a promising start – born to musical parents, a precocious childhood, meetings with major conductors, and a symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic – his personal and creative eccentricities worked against him.

Langgaard followed his personal muse deep into the realm of late Romanticism at a time when most of the musical world was exploring modernist territory. Though he was given a state grant at 30, he failed to secure a permanent job until the age of 46, as an organist at the cathedral in Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark – which somehow seems appropriate for this most anachronistic of Danish outsiders.

An eccentric , shabby figure with wild hair, Laangaard died in Ribe 13 years later, in 1952, just shy of his 59th birthday, still largely unrecognized as a composer.

His reputation would not begin to gain traction for another 16 years. In all, he composed over 400 works, including 16 symphonies – which bear evocative titles such as “Yon Hall of Thunder” and “Deluge of the Sun” – and an opera, “Antikrist.”

Be sure to listen in, in the 9:00 hour this morning, to enjoy Langgaard’s Symphony No. 4, subtitled “Fall of the Leaf.” It’s all music about autumn this morning until 11:00 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM and online at wprb.com.

October 22, 2015
Autumn Music Celebration on WPRB This Thursday

This is a textbook example of grasping for low-hanging fruit – or perhaps radiant leaves would be more appropriate. Be that as it may, who doesn’t love autumn? The combination of crisp, Jack Frost exhilaration and pie-induced coziness is hard to beat.

I hope you’ll join me this Thursday morning on WPRB as we celebrate the glorious season of autumn. I know, we’re already a month into it, but autumn doesn’t become truly autumn until October is ripe on the vine.

We’ll enjoy seasonal works by Cécile Chaminade, Vernon Duke, Gerald Finzi, Billy Mayerl, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ottorino Respighi, Tomáš Svoboda, Virgil Thomson, Peter Warlock, and many, many others, as well as non-seasonal works that for some reason hold for me seasonal associations. Also, I would be remiss not to toss in a piece or two by Franz Liszt, one of the great musical minds of the 19th century – and a great person to boot – on the occasion of his 204th birthday anniversary.

I had an eager listener phone in on September 23, the Autumnal Equinox, to request music to celebrate the season. I was sorry to have to say, “Too soon!” Now that the pledge drive is over, we can all drink deep, like Dionysus at Keats’ “cyder press.” Let the rustic dances begin!

Sincere thanks to all of you who did your part last week to support independent radio. (Kenneth Hutchins, you are now the Patron Saint of Classic Ross Amico.) For those of you who weren’t listening or were unable to pledge, remember, you may do so at any time, at wprb.com. You’ll be doing me a personal kindness if you send along a line or two to let them know how much you enjoy the show.

We’ll be offering up a tray full of apples and Spiced Wafers tomorrow morning, from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com. It will be more fun than a five-hour leaf fight on Classic Ross Amico.

October 21, 2015

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