Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WWFM

Mediterranean Music Cruise on WWFM

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” leave all your troubles behind for a musical cruise to the Mediterranean.

We’ll have a work by Charles Camilleri, Malta’s national composer – his “Mediterranean Dances” of 1961. Also, John McLaughlin’s “Mediterranean Concerto” of 1985. McLaughlin, who’s made his home in Monaco for the past 40 years, is better known as a jazz or jazz fusion artist. His infectious concerto is ambitious in scope, about twice the length of those ordinarily devoted to the guitar.

Pack your suntan lotion. We’re headed to the Mediterranean basin for “Mediterranean Muse” – one hour later than usual, due to the length of this week’s opera (Handel’s “Almira,” beginning at 3 pm) – this Sunday night at 11:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

August 28, 2022
Suk’s Summer’s Tale Healing Through Nature

Josef Suk’s 30th year was a tragic one, marked by the deaths of both his young wife, Otilie, and her father, his former teacher, Antonín Dvořák. Not surprisingly, a sense of morbidity colors much of his mature output. The double-loss directly inspired Suk’s “Asrael Symphony,” named for the Angel of Death.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll take a look at “A Summer’s Tale,” the next step in Suk’s emotional rehabilitation. The work is a five-movement symphonic poem, the second of a four-part cycle that contemplates death and the meaning of life. More affirmative than the grim “Asrael,” which is full of pain, loss, and grief, “A Summer’s Tale” explores the healing powers of nature, in a score that at times reflects the epic romanticism of Gustav Mahler and at others the impressionism of Claude Debussy. It was composed over the course of just six weeks in the summer of 1907. Further tinkering took place over the next year-and-a-half. The work received its premiere in January of 1909.

Suk later described the theme of the piece as “finding a soothing balm in nature.” I hope you’ll join me as we clear a path to “Healing by Nature” – Josef Suk’s “A Summer’s Tale” – this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

July 31, 2022
Sabatini Swashbucklers on WWFM

Though Rafael Sabatini’s popularity may have faded somewhat over the decades, in his day the Italian-English writer might have been regarded as the heir apparent to Alexandre Dumas. His bestselling novels are full of romance and derring-do. However, unlike Dumas, I’m not sure if any of his books have really endured in the consciousness of the wider public.

His memory is kept alive principally through film adaptations of his works. And why not? His incident-filled pages seem tailor-made for the silver screen. Film adaptations of “Scaramouche,” “The Sea Hawk” and “Captain Blood” were all made during the silent era. A long-lost John Gilbert classic adapted from Sabatini’s “Bardelys the Magnificent” has only recently been rediscovered. Several of these, of course, were remade, more or less, to even greater success during the era of talking pictures.

This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hear Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s music for the Errol Flynn classics “Captain Blood” (1935) and “The Sea Hawk” (1940). The former provided Flynn with his breakout role; the latter actually has nothing at all to do with Sabatini’s original plot, despite the writer’s prominent onscreen credit.

We’ll also enjoy Alfred Newman’s rollicking main title music for the pirate opus “The Black Swan” (1942), which starred Tyrone Power, and one of Victor Young’s most rousing and melodically inventive scores, for “Scaramouche” (1952), which featured Stewart Granger in probably the best swashbuckler of the 1950s.

Polish up those seven-league boots and don your gaudiest plumage. We’ll set sail with movies inspired by the novels of Rafael Sabatini on “Picture Perfect,” this Saturday evening at 6:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org!

July 16, 2022
Ellis Island Dreams Immigration Then & Now

At a time when immigration remains a divisive issue, it’s instructive to look back to political cartoons of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when bomb-toting Bolsheviks seemed poised to take down our democracy, the Chinese were inscrutable back-stabbers, the Jews were bearers of poverty and disease, and the Irish were simian-faced hooligans and drunkards. Anxiety about outsiders has always been with us, yet somehow we got over each successive alien group, and the country has plugged along just fine.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll gain a little perspective, courtesy of composer Peter Boyer. From 1892 to 1954, more than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island in search of a better life. More than 40 percent of the U.S. population – over 100 million Americans – can trace their roots to someone who entered this country along that route.

Boyer’s “Ellis Island: The Dream of America” incorporates texts from testimonials archived as part of the Ellis Island Oral History Project. These are real words of real people telling their own stories. The work is performed by actors, rather than speakers or narrators, who deliver their monologues in the first person. In a powerful epilogue, each of them comes together to recite a stanza from Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus.” It’s so effective – and affecting – I get a little choked up just thinking about it.

You will, too, when you join me for “Spirits of Independence,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

July 3, 2022
Elvis Isasi Shared Song Secret

What do Elvis Presley’s “Wooden Heart” and Andrés Isasi’s Symphony No. 2 have in common? They both employ the same German folk melody. Bask in the music of this neglected Basque composer on “Assaying Isasi,” on “The Lost Chord,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: The King and Isasi (with friends)

June 26, 2022

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