Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Paul Wittgenstein Left-Hand Legacy on WPRB

An accurate assessment of the contributions of Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961) is bound to come across as a left-handed compliment. Only, as applied to Wittgenstein, the concept is perhaps not entirely negative.

Tomorrow is the birthday anniversary of this remarkable Austrian pianist, who lost his right arm during the First World War. Rather than let it hamper his career, he went on to commission some of the great composers of his day to write new works for the left hand alone. The most famous of these is the “Concerto for the Left Hand” by Maurice Ravel.

Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we’ll have an opportunity to listen to a number of these, including works by Sergei Bortkiewicz, Benjamin Britten, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Franz Schmidt, and Richard Strauss. We’ll also hear the world premiere recording, made by Leon Fleisher – another famous pianist who’s had right hand issues – of “Klaviermusik mit Orchester” by Paul Hindemith, a piece rediscovered in a Pennsylvania farmhouse, following the death of Wittgenstein’s widow, only in 2002.

Wittgenstein had his limitations. He had very conservative tastes in music and rejected some of the works he commissioned, like the Prokofiev and the Hindemith, which he deemed too modern. Since he owned the exclusive performance rights, this often led to the works going unheard for decades. Also, the recordings we have of him performing the Ravel concerto will undoubtedly raise a few eyebrows with the pianist’s “improvements” to what is already a perfect work, likely the best of its kind.

But he had an iron will to flourish, where many would have lapsed into despair, and the good sense to use the Wittgenstein fortune to enrich the repertoire in general and the left hand literature in particular.

As time allows, we’ll also hear works championed by Siegfried Rapp and Otakar Hollman, two other pianists maimed in the war, as well as pieces written for Fleisher and Gary Graffman, modern day keyboard artists who’ve grappled with focal dystonia, and a few unrelated left-hand contributions by earlier composers such as Johannes Brahms, Camille Saint-Saëns and Alexander Scriabin.

I hope you’ll me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We lend a hand to Paul Wittgenstein on Classic Ross Amico.

November 4, 2015
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

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