Poland is in bloom! This Saturday on “The Lost Chord,” find refreshment in musical discoveries by four Polish composers.
We’ll hear a Fantasy for Cello and Piano by Alexandre Tansman. Tansman spent most of his career in Paris, with an interlude during the war years in the United States. Here, he met Arnold Schoenberg, wrote film scores, and developed an affection for American jazz. Still, his most enduring influences were those of his Polish and Jewish roots.
Hyper-romantic Mieczyslaw Karlowicz lived his life at such a heightened emotional pitch that he was perhaps fated to die young. His music certainly tends in that direction, occupied as most of it is with ecstasy and death. “A Sad Tale,” his last completed work, is a contemplation of suicide. Karlowicz himself was killed in an avalanche while hiking in the Tatras. He was 32 years-old.
On a lighter note, we’ll enjoy choral music by Andrzej Koszewski – his “Kaszuby Suite,” steeped in folk traditions of northwestern Poland – and a neoclassical woodwind quintet by Wojciech Kilar, who is probably best known in the West for his film scores, including those for “Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’” “The Portrait of a Lady,” and “The Pianist.”
It’s a flowering of Polish music on “Poland Spring,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu See less
Category: The Lost Chord
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“Poland Spring” on “The Lost Chord”
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No Picnic: “Requiescat in pace” on “The Lost Chord”
To a great many, Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, a time for picnics and trips to the shore, for Hollywood to flood the multiplexes with soulless blockbusters, a signifier of the end of school, and the beginning of three long, lazy months of way too much daylight.
But it didn’t always bear those associations. The precursor of Memorial Day was Decoration Day, first widely observed in 1868, to honor and remember those who died in the Civil War. It was a time for decorating graves, making solemn speeches, and marching in parades. These customs metamorphosed to the point where, after World War I, Memorial Day was seen as an occasion to honor those who died in ALL American wars.
Regardless of how one may perceive armed conflict, of whether any given war may be called just or unjust, it is not war itself or conflict in general that is being celebrated. Rather, it is the sacrifice of those who died in defense of a larger cause, and ostensibly that cause has been for the common good.
One would think, were one an idealist, that by this stage of our collective development, when any disruption in the global fabric obviously effects all of us, that wars would be considered obsolete. But sadly, human nature being what it is, there will probably always be reasons to remember.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll salute those who made the ultimate sacrifice, by listening to three works commemorating the dead of World War II, including “For the Fallen,” a berceuse for orchestra by Bernard Herrmann; Aaron Copland’s Violin Sonata, dedicated to Lt. Larry H. Dunham, who was killed in the Pacific in 1943; and the peace cantata “A Time for Remembrance,” by John Duffy.
Duffy himself was a World War II veteran, who lied about his age when enlisting. He became part of the Amphibious Scouts and Raiders, forerunners to the Navy SEALs, before deploying on the USS Hopping, a destroyer escort in the Pacific. His duties included detonating Japanese mines by shooting them from ship deck. When his ship took fire from shore batteries at Okinawa, the sailor standing next to him was killed. Duffy had to stand guard over the dead man’s body until burial at sea in the morning. That night watch determined the course of his life. “Since our time is so fleeting and unpredictable,” he later commented, “I knew I had to dedicate my life to music.”
War is no picnic. I hope you’ll join me for “Requiescat in pace,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon.
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
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John Duffy on his war experiences and his decision to become a composer: -
In the Open Air with Marc Blitzstein on “The Lost Chord”
This week on “The Lost Chord,” to coincide with Armed Forces Day, we’ll listen to Marc Blitzstein’s “Airborne Symphony.”
The programmatic work, a quasi-oratorio, was written on a commission from the U.S. Army, while the composer was serving in its Air Force. It traces the evolution of flight from its conception in theory to its use in modern warfare.
The piece was envisaged by Blitzstein as a big symphony on the theme of “the sacred struggle of airborne free men of the world… to crush the monstrous fascist obstructionist in their path.” Begun in 1943, at the height of World War II, it would not be completed until 1946, after the conflict had ended.
Leonard Bernstein, a lifelong admirer of the composer (he mounted a performance of Blitzstein’s pro-labor musical, “The Cradle Will Rock,” while still at student at Harvard, and dedicated his own opera, “Trouble in Tahiti,” to him), conducted the premiere virtually while the ink was still wet on the page.
He recorded the piece twice. We’ll hear the second of those recordings, from 1966, with Orson Welles the narrator, vocal soloists, the New York Philharmonic, and the men of the Choral Arts Society.
It may not be the most profound of Bernstein’s recordings, but it surely is one of the most unusual. I hope you’ll join me for “Flight of Fancy” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
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PHOTO: Blitzstein and Bernstein, dining al fresco -
Fancy Feline Footware on “The Lost Chord”
You can tune an orchestra, but you can’t tun-a fish.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we put the “cat” in Catalan music with selections from Xavier Montsalvatge’s one-act opera “Puss in Boots.”
“Puss in Boots,” Montsalvatge’s first opera, was composed in 1947. We all know the story. The tale, in its best-known guise, was published by Charles Perrault in 1695 as one of the “Tales of Mother Goose.”
A poor miller laments his inheritance. Most of the family property – the mill and the mules – goes to his elder brothers, and all that’s left for him is an unprepossessing cat. He wonders of what use to him a cat could possibly be. He contemplates eating it, perhaps using the skin to make a hat. The cat, however, promptly endears himself, and offers to gain his master a fortune, a kingdom, and the hand of a beautiful princess. All he asks in exchange is a pair of boots to spare his feet, a stylish hat with a plume, a cape, and a sword fashioned out of bone.
Since the cat presents him with a ring from the hand of the princess, the Miller considers it a fair deal, and sets about getting, by hook or by crook, whatever the cat desires.
Throughout the course of the story, with his cunning and superior wits, the cat is able to deliver on everything he promises.
We’ll heard selections from a 2004 recording on the Columna Musica label, with Argentine mezzo-soprano Marisa Martins as Puss (an unusual take on the traditional “trouser role”) and tenor Antonio Comas as the Miller. The Symphony Orchestra of the Gran Teatre del Liceu is conducted by Antoni Ros Marba.
Listen for charming cat-like touches in the strings and the use of piano throughout to emulate the decorative style of 18th century recitative.
That’s “Fur Love and Valor” – highlights from Xavier Montsalvatge’s “Puss in Boots” – on “The Lost Chord, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu -
Impetuous Youth on “The Lost Chord”
Wagner wrote symphonies? That’s right. He took a crack at writing two of them, in a Beethovenian style, before finding his niche as a revolutionary opera composer.
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear Wagner’s Symphony in E, alongside early attempts by Gustav Holst and Claude Debussy. Judging from their mature works, these three would be among the least likely to attempt sonata form.
Impetuous youth! I hope you’ll join me for “Bold Heads on Young Shoulders” – audacious composers at the start of their careers strive for symphonic mastery – on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!
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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!
https://kwax.uoregon.edu
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