Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Neo-Baroque Music on WPRB Today

If, for you, mention of the Baroque conjures images of recorders and harpsichords and beauty marks and shoes with big buckles on them, you’ve got another thing coming. Sure, if you tune in to WPRB this morning, you’ll get your share of concerti grossi, partitas, toccatas, chaconnes and fugues. However, none of them will have been composed before the turn of the 20th century. A few of them will even be from our own time.

It’s a full morning of music of the “Neo-Baroque,” as we revel in the exuberance and melancholy of autumn, which for me is the most Baroque of the seasons. (Don’t ask me to explain. Maybe I’m just eating too many apples.)

Along the way, we’ll manage to honor Paul Dukas, whose 150th birthday anniversary passed largely unrecognized on October 1, beyond perhaps a few more airings of “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” We’ll be listening to Dukas’ “Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau.”

As is often the case, I’m not really sure what else I’ll be playing, but it’s all in the box and ready to go. Among the pieces I would love to include – and sincerely hope I can get to – will be Hendrik Andriessen’s “Variations on a Theme by Couperin,” Paul Creston’s “Partita for Flute, Violin and Strings,” Ilja Hurnik’s “Sonata da camera,” Paul Lansky’s “Semi-Suite,” Julián Orbón’s “Concerto Grosso for String Quartet and Orchestra,” Roberto Sierra’s “Fantasia Corelliana,” Germaine Tailleferre’s “Concerto Grosso for 2 Pianos, Singers, Saxophones and Orchestra,” and, well, whatever else I’ve got on these 60 CDs I’ve toted in.

In the 9:00 hour, we’ll be joined by special guests violinist Kinga Augustyn and conductor Mariusz Smolij. They’ll tell us a little bit about their upcoming appearance with the Riverside Symphonia, of which Smolij is music director. The program will include three violin crowd-pleasers, framed by two joyful serenades of Mozart and Dvořák. The concert will take place tomorrow night at 8, at St. Martin of Tours Church, in New Hope, Pa.

I hope you’ll join me for music of the Neo-Baroque this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. It will be played against a basso continuo of sleep-deprivation and befuddlement, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: “Heavens, Tobias, what IS he playing?”

October 8, 2015
Neo Baroque Music on WPRB

Old is the new “new.” This is no reflection on retired Princeton University professor Paul Lansky, beyond the fact that later on in this hour we’ll be listening to his delightful work for guitar, the “Semi-Suite,” the movements of which take their names from Baroque dance forms. We’ll also have a Baroque-inflected suite for violin and piano by Henry Cowell, and a charming reworking of a favorite piece of Bach by Percy Grainger.

It’s music of the Neo-Baroque – as 20th and 21st century composers look back to the 18th century – this morning until 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com.

October 8, 2015
Neo-Baroque Music Autumn WPRB

Something about autumn puts me in the mind of Baroque music (and Brahms). However, since the Baroque isn’t really my area of expertise – and since, therefore, a lot of it starts to sound the same to me – I thought I’d devote my program tomorrow morning on WPRB to music of the NEO-Baroque.

Some of it will consist of pastiches by 20th and 21st century composers dressed up in antique clothing; a lot of it will assimilate Baroque forms while remaining decidedly of our time. In addition, there will be variations on Baroque themes and tributes to Baroque masters.

Not a lot to do about the hankering for Brahms, unless I break down and play his “Handel Variations.” I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. I’ll be donning the powdered wig and giggling bwoo-hoo-hoohoohoo, on Classic Ross Amico.

October 7, 2015
Poetry & Music on WPRB

“Is it the words that move my heart or the music that speaks more strongly? It’s fruitless to try to separate them. Words and music are fused into one… One art redeemed by the other!”

– The Countess, Richard Strauss’ “Capriccio”

I hope you’ll join me this morning on WPRB, when and where there will be plenty of words and music to ponder, as we listen to as much music inspired by poetry and poets as we possibly can in five hours.

It will be a veritable Norton Anthology of works influenced by Matthew Arnold, William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E.E. Cummings, A.E. Houseman, Victor Hugo, Ben Johnson, Edward Lear, Federico Garcia Lorca, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Pushkin, Friedrich Schiller, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wallace Stevens and William Butler Yeats.

You’ll hear choral music, song, overtures and symphonic poems, with Sir John Gielgud reading the texts by Aloysius Bertrand that inspired Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit.”

J.D. Burnett, founder and artistic director of the Kinnara Ensemble, will drop by at around 10:00. He’ll tell us a little bit about the choir’s concert at The Hun School of Princeton this Saturday at 8 p.m., when the group will present Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” along with works by Johannes Brahms and others.

Sharpen your quills – it’s all about poetry and music this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’re starving for our art on Classic Ross Amico.

October 1, 2015
Poetry Inspires Music on WPRB

Coming up later in this hour: Sir John Gielgud reads the eerie texts by Aloysius Bertrand that inspired Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” (“Gaspard of the Night”). Gina Bachauer will be the pianist in this classic recording.

We’ll also hear a gorgeous work after Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” by Philadelphia composer Romeo Cascarino and Irving Fine’s settings for a cappella chamber choir of poetry of Ben Jonson, “The Hour-Glass.”

It’s all poetry and music until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com.

October 1, 2015

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