Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WWFM

Support Classical Music on The Classical Network

The grasshoppers are about to put away their fiddles and the birds take their songs south, but you can count on The Classical Network to continue to provide a stable home for beautiful music throughout the year.

At the touch of a button or the click of a mouse, you’ll be able to enjoy the artistry of the great composers, performers and ensembles, both of the past and of the present day, through cherished recordings and the latest releases, exclusive interviews and broadcast concerts.

This bounty is made possible only through the generous support of loyal listeners just like you. And we never take it for granted. Thanksgiving may still be weeks away, but already we are here to express our gratitude to you, our friends, for keeping classical music available in our community for the past 37 years.

Help us celebrate the abundance of wonderful programming we all rely on every day to enrich the quality of our lives by helping us to meet our financial goals. Our hosts will be popping up occasionally with on-air reminders, beginning today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. EDT. Call us now at 1-888-232-1212 or make a donation online at wwfm.org.

Renewed memberships, first-time contributions, additional pledges, vehicle donations, and estate planning – all are gratefully received and acknowledged. Please help us to fortify ourselves against the colder months by guaranteeing the security and enjoyment of uninterrupted classical music.

Thank you for your ongoing support, from all of us at WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!

October 14, 2019
RVW Birthday Dett Celebration & De Palma Scores

Tomorrow is the birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Tune in this afternoon to The Classical Network to hear selections from a new CD issued on Dutton Vocalion Records that features what is billed as the world premiere recording of RVW’s incidental music to a radio presentation of Shakespeare’s “Richard II.”

Also, we’ll celebrate the anniversary of the birth of R. Nathaniel Dett. Dett was born in what is now Niagara Falls, Ontario. His grandfather was an escaped slave who found freedom on the Underground Railroad. Dett became an important figure in the American music of his time. Yet he is remembered today, if at all, for a lone piano suite, “In the Bottoms,” or perhaps only for its two-minute concluding dance, “Juba,” which was championed by Percy Grainger, among others.

Clipper Erickson, piano, was the first to record all of Dett’s keyboard works. His performances have been collected on an album titled “My Cup Runneth Over,” on Navona Records, a division of PARMA Recordings.

If you find this music attractive, you can hear more by joining Clipper, soprano Rochelle Ellis, and the Westminster Jubilee Sings, at Westminster Choir College’s Bristol Chapel, tonight at 7:30, for an R. Nathaniel Dett birthday blow-out. Get there early, at 6:45, to attend a pre-concert talk.

Back to radio: Coming up at 6:00 this evening, it’s music from the suspense, horror, and crime thrillers of director Brian De Palma, on “Picture Perfect” – music for the movies. We’ll hear selections by Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Pino Donaggio, and Ennio Morricone.

The week ends strong, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 11, 2019
Classical Music Birthday Party This Afternoon

This afternoon on The Classical Network, it will be a veritable clown car full of birthday anniversaries, as we celebrate the artistry of composers William Billings (the Early American tanner), Felix Draeseke (a protégé of Liszt), Bernhard Molique (admirer of Spohr), and Ivan Jirko (the Czech psychiatrist), conductors Charles Dutoit and Alfred Wallenstein, and pianists Shura Cherkassky and Yundi Li.

So much music, so little time. We’ll be handing out gifts like so many cream pies, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15125743/the-physics-of-clown-cars-feature/

October 7, 2019
Forgotten Swiss Composers on WWFM

Alphorns, cuckoo clocks, chocolates, and “Heidi.” You won’t encounter any of these this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord.” What you will hear are two neglected works by Swiss composers.

Ernest Bloch, who is best known for his music on Jewish themes (such as his Hebraic rhapsody “Schelomo” or last week’s “Israel Symphony”), actually spent most of his life in the United States. He died in Portland, Oregon, in 1959, at the age of 78.

50 years earlier, while still in Switzerland, he composed his song cycle “Poèmes d’automne.” At the time, he was at work on his opera, “Macbeth,” but was sidelined when he made the acquaintance of a young poet by the name of Beatrix Rodès. He fell instantly in love with her, and set four of her poems within two months. Rodès would eventually become his mistress, though in the end Bloch chose to remain with his wife. It’s said that the texts, even in the original French, are of dubious literary quality.

The composer arranged them to form a kind of progression, in which a woman passes from sadness and desolation, to peace and love, to lamentation for the passing of her beauty, to an air of serenity as she becomes a priestess (!).

Okay, so it’s not his strongest work, but it is seasonal and interesting to listen to.

Hans Huber, who lived from 1852 to 1921, was the composer of nine symphonies (of which he acknowledged eight), five operas, and a number of concertos for various instruments. His four concertos for piano and orchestra are somewhat unusual in that, like Brahms’ experiments in the form, they are made up of four movements – he added a scherzo – as opposed to the customary three.

The Piano Concerto No. 3 was given its debut in Basel in February of 1899. The work is also unique in the way it teases the principal theme of its finale in the first movement, as the underpinnings of a passacaglia. A deft piece of craftsmanship, to be sure, and one that demonstrates that the composer wasn’t just cranking out Romantic concertos as if they were cervelats.

As Groucho Marx once quipped, “The Lord Alps those who Alp themselves.” Alp yourself to forgotten Swiss music, on “Swiss Missed,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 6, 2019
Saint Francis Feast Day Music for Animal Lovers

How can you not love this guy?

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi. This is a saint who was never too busy to chat with the birds or to befriend a wolf. He introduced the crèche to Christmas, complete with livestock. He even lobbied for a special law so that people would provide for the birds and the beasts.

Regardless of one’s creed, no one, I should think, would take umbrage at the idea of love and respect for the natural world. Take a moment today to be kind to the animals. Hug your pet. Water the birds. Let a cricket out of the house. Then join me at 4:00 on The Classical Network for music inspired by Saint Francis and friends.

We’ll hear Franz Liszt’s “Saint Francis of Assisi’s Sermon to the Birds,” Kenneth Fuchs’ horn concerto “Canticle to the Sun,” and Paul Hindemith’s Saint Francis ballet “Nobilissima Visione.”

Cats will waltz. Grasshoppers will dance. Dogs will eat pancakes. And sheep may safely graze.

At 6:00, you’ll have a chance to expand your affection to the cryptozoological realm, with music from movies about dragons, on “Picture Perfect.”

What’s not to love? The music will have legs – four of them! – from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

October 4, 2019

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS