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Broadcasting as a Community Service  

91 .3FM
 


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WWUH 91.3 FM
Program Guide
May/June, 2018
In This Issue
Marathon Success
Blue Monday Specials
Hosts Needed
Flashback:1968
Public Affairs on WWUH
Classical Music on WWUH
Composer Birthdays
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
WWUH Archive Now Online
How To Listen
Join Our List
 
WWUH - Your Live, Local, Listener-Supported Station
 
 
 
     Our Spring Marathon was a huge success with over $63,000 pledged towards a goal of $55,000!  
     I'd like to thank everyone who called in during the drive.  WWUH would not exist without the incredible support provided by our listeners who have always been there for us.
     We had some computer problems that delayed our sending our pledge reminders but everything is working fine now and you should be receiving your reminder in the mail shortly.  We're also in the process of sending out premiums and receipts to those who have already paid.
      If you missed the drive it's never to late to doante.   Donate Now


John Ramsey
General Manager


Blue Monday
9 PM to midnight
hosted by Bart Bozzi
 
Tune in to Blue Monday during May and June 2018 for the following features:
 
Featured Artist
 
May 7 - Denise Lasalle (1934-2018)
May 14 - William Clarke
May 21 - James Solberg
May 28 - Bette Levette
June 4 - Tinsley Ellis
June 11 - JW Jones
June 18 -  Luther Johnson
June 25 - Joanna Connor
 
 
Back to the Roots
 
May 7 - Boogie Woogie
May 14 - Texas Blues
May 21 - Jump Blues
May 28 - Delta Blues
June 4 - Kansas City Blues
June 11 -  Chicago Blues
June 18 - Louisiana Blues
June 25 - West Coast Blues
 
 
Tune in as we also go back in my blues history, featuring a cut I aired 20 and 10 years ago on my weekly blues shows previously aired on Blue Monday.
 
Join me as we explore the diverse and interesting world of "the blues" every Monday night at 9 PM on WWUH's long running blues show, since 1980, "Blue Monday".
 
Have An Idea for A Program?
 

If you have an idea for a radio program and are available to volunteer late at night, please let us know.

We may have some midnight and/or 3am slots available later this year.  Email station manager  John Ramsey to find out more about this unique and exciting opportunity for the right person.

Qualified candidates will have access to the full WWUH programmer orientation program so no experience is necessary. He/she will also need to attend the monthly WWUH staff meetings (held on Tuesday or Sunday evenings) and do behind the scenes volunteer work from time to time. This is a volunteer position.

After completing this process, we will review the candidate's assets and accomplishments and they will be considered for any open slots in our schedule.


 

  FLASHBACK: Year - 1968

     
Many affectionately call Clark Smidt (Class of 70) the "father" of WWUH.  His ideas, dedication, and leadership made WWUH a reality and shaped its policies for many years. As one of the largest college radio stations of its time, the first in New England to broadcast in stereo, and one of the first to broadcast 24-hours a day, WWUH went on to become more than a college radio station, serving the greater Hartford area with Public Alternative radio and launching the careers of many who crossed its path. WWUH continues today to offer the community different types of music, from Classics to Jazz, in a non-commercial environment; to provide the University of Hartford with a voice; and to act as a training ground for future broadcasters.
 
          When Clark first developed the idea of starting a radio station at the University of Hartford, his love of and commitment to radio was already apparent with his part-time job at WBIS, a small AM station in Bristol, CT. Years later, Clark would work as Program Director of WEEI and WBZ-FM, both in Boston, before starting his own broadcast consulting firm and later becoming licensee of WNNR-FM in Concord, NH, which, like WWUH, he started from scratch.  Here, in Clark's own words, (with thanks to Bob Paiva and the "The Program Director's Handbook") is the story of WWUH's beginnings:
 
          "From day one of freshman orientation, I started to ask about a radio station. I was told that people had thought about it before but that nobody had ever followed through.  There was an open frequency at 91.3, and WTIC in Hartford had even agreed to donate a 1,000-watt FM transmitter and $2,000.   
 
          "I ran all over the school drumming up support for the project, and at the close of my freshman year, I was given the go-ahead to put together the University of Hartford radio station. I was still doing weekends at WBIS in Bristol, so I was considered a "professional" and appointed the station's general manager with responsibilities for the station's programming. Support from the University community came from many sources:  the Operations Department helped with the technical set-up, engineering students were involved with station's technical operations, and various professors contributed programming material.  The late William Teso, a professor at the engineering school, and Harold Dorschug, Chief Engineer at WTIC, was instrumental in properly completing the technical part of the FCC application and training the students.
 
          "It took nine months to get the application through the FCC and on July 15, 1968, we signed on the station with 1800 watts of effective radiated power and the call letters ' WWUH.' It was later pointed out that once you mastered saying "WWUH" you could work anywhere.
 
          "Although we couldn't accept paid commercials, we got a few donations and pulled some fast deals for acknowledged donations. We convinced Lipman Motors to lease a 1967 Rambler station wagon to the station for $1 a year for use as a news car.  We announced on-air that the news was compiled through United Press International wire services and the 'mobile team in the Lipman Motors UH news wagon.'  The white vehicle with red WWUH NEWS lettering and license plates, equipped with lights on top, was stolen only months later.
 
          "Prior to 1968, Louis K. Roth, a generous Regent of the University, had told the President of the University of Hartford that he would finance the radio station.  Mr. Roth passed away before we got things rolling, but his family still came to us with a check for $40,000.  While serious consideration was given to changing the station's call letters to WLKR, we instead renamed the radio station the Louis K. Roth Memorial radio station, and by the time I graduated in 1970, we had built a complete stereo radio station and still had $14,000 of Mr. Roth's grant left over.
         
          "In the beginning, we were on the air from 6 pm to 1:30 am.  We had an "easy listening" program for 45 minutes, 15 minutes of news, and a feature called, "Hartford Tonight," where we recapped things that were happening around town.  We programmed information from 7-7:30, jazz from 7:30 to 10, and progressive rock from 10 pm through sign-off. We ran opera on Sunday when we started broadcasting on weekends.
 
          "For the first three weeks I had to run the control board for every show in order to train people, but within a year we were broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The response from the community was tremendous."  


Public Affairs on WWUH
Real Alternative News
 
For close to 50 years WWUH has aired a variety of community affairs programs.

Here is our current schedule:
Monday: Noon - 1pm  Alternative Radio
  8:00 - 9:00 pm  Radio Ecoshock
Tuesday:  Noon - 12:30 pm  New World Notes
   12:30 -  1:00 pm  Counterspin
    8:00 - 9:00 pm  Black Agenda Report
Wednesday:  Noon - 12:30 pm  911 Wake Up Call
                 12:30 - 1:00 pm   Building Bridges
           8:00 - 8:30 pm  911 Wake Up Call
           8:30 - 9:00 pm  New World Notes
Thursday:   Noon - 1:00 pm  Project Censored
                  7:30 - 8:00 pm  Making Contact
                  8:00 - 8:30 pm  This Way Out
                  8:30 - 9:00 pm Gay Spirit
Friday:        12:00 - 12:30 pm  New Focus
                  12:30 - 1:00 pm  TUC Radio
Sunday:      4:30 - 5:00 pm  Explorations
 
WWUH Classical Programming
May/June 2018
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
Sundays 1:00 - 4:30 pm
Evening Classics... Weekdays 4:00 to 7:00/ 8:00 pm
Drake's Village Brass Band... Mondays 7:00-8:00 pm


May
Tue
1
Telemann: Ouverture Suite in D minor, TWV 55:d3; Claude Debussy: La Mer; J. S. Bach: Cantata for Cantate [4th Sunday after Easter] BWV 166: 'Wo gehest du hin?'; Nicola (Antonio) Porpora: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D major; Louise Farrenc: Piano Quintet No. 2 in E major, Op. 31; Robert Simpson: Symphony No. 7; Couperin: Pieces de clavecin, Book 1 (selections)
Wed
2
Elgar: Symphony No. 2; De Falla: Songs; Rolla: String Quartet; Stravinsky: Orpheus; Myslivecek: Octet for Winds
Thu
3
Meder: Symphony Op. 1 #4; Dupre: Prelude & Fugue in g Op. 7 #3; Warlock: Serenade for Strings; Cimarosa: Piano Sonatas 85-88; Beethoven: String Quartet No. 2 in G Op. 18 #2; Gassmann: Sinfonia in c; N. Tcherepnin: 3 Pieces Op. 24; Schwindl: Symphony in D Op. 9 #3; Harvey: Come Holy Ghost; Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 3.
Fri
4
Some people go bass - fishing; our grandson goes bass-sooning
Sun
6
Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost
Mon
7
Lukas Foss Conducts the Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra; Bartok: Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste; Hindemith: Music for Strings and Brass; Foss: Quintets for Orchestra (Bernstein 100); Marvin Hamlisch: 1974 Album - The Entertainer
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Swedish Wind Ensemble: Stravinsky Works for Winds
Tue
8
Boccherini: Cello Concerto #7 in G; David: Schubertiade; Ponchielli: Concerto in F for Trumpet & Band; Bruckner: Symphony #4 in E "Romantic"
Wed
9
Haydn: Symphony No. 82; Mudarra: Fantasia; Nielsen: String Quartet in G Minor; Charpentier: Medee; Rands: Le Tambourin
Thu
10
Rouget de L'isle: La Marseillaise; Leclair: Flute Concerto in C Op. 7 #3; Violin Sonata in D Op. 9 #3; Steiner: Casablanca Suite, Gone With the Wind-Tara's Theme; Tiomkin: Cyrano de Bergerac Overture, Four Poster Overture; Babbitt: Minute Waltz (3/4 ± 1/8); Chopin: Waltz #6 in Db Op. 64 #1 'Minute Waltz'; Gal: Serenade for Strings; Rosetti: Symphony in B Flat; Saint-Saëns: Piano Trio #2; Alfred Brendel plays Schumann.
Fri
11
Music of William Grant Still
Sun
13
Von Suppe: Il Ritorno del Marinario
Mon
14
Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin;, Pavane for a Dead Princess; Rhapsodies and Symphonic Movements of Debussy and Honegger (Bernstein 100); Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Royal Academy of Music Brass and Julliard School Brass: Gabrielli Music for Brass - A Venetian Extravaganza
Tue
15
Klami: Theme with Seven Variations & Coda, Op. 44; Vranický: Symphony in c, sine Op.; Stenhammar: Sonata in a for Violin & Piano, Op. 19; Guridi: Sinfonía pirenaica (Pyrenean Symphony)
Wed
16
Dittersdorf: Symphony; Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore selections; Marais: La Gamme; Goetz: Lose Batter; Catoire: Piano Trio
Thu
17
Host's Choice.
Fri
18
Rick Wakeman - Phantom of the Opera
Sun
20
Leclair: Scylla et Giaucus
Mon
21
Ravel: Gaspard de la Nuit, Miroirs; Leonard Bernstein Discusses Humor in Music and Conducts Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (with the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Danse Macabre thrown in) (Bernstein 100); Sibelius: Kuolema - Incidental Music
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Anthony Plog Trumpet: Snapshots
Tue
22
Ginastera: Estancia; Larsson: Concertino for double bass & string orchestra, Op. 45, #11; Beethoven: String Quartet in C, Op. 59, #3; Orff: Carmina Burana
Wed
23
Scriabin: Symphony No. 2; Perischetti: Mass; C. Schumann: Piano Trio; Aufschnaiter: Serenades; Geminiani: Concerti Grossi
Thu
24
Host's Choice.
Fri
25
Classical Conversations - a quarterly feature
Sun
27
Boubil: Miss Saigon; Weill: Johnny Johnson
Mon
28
Memorial Day Special... Price: Mississippi River Suite; Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite; Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; An American in Paris (Bernstein 100)
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Brass Band Music from the Civil War; Jager: The Wall
Tue
29
Telemann: Ouverture Suite in B-Flat major, TWV 55:B10; Debussy: Nocturnes; J. S. Bach: Cantata for Trinity Sunday [Trinity] BWV 165 'O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad'; Nicola (Antonio) Porpora: Violin Sonata No. 4 in B-flat major; Louise Farrenc: Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 34; Robert Simpson: Symphony No. 8 (1981); Couperin: Pieces de clavecin, Book 1 (selections)
Wed
30
Dvorak: Symphony No. 2; Gorecki: Choros I; Kahn: Violin Sonata No. 3; S. Arnold: Incidental Music to Macbeth; Dohnanyi: Symphony
Thu
31
Marais: Les Folies d'Espagne; Farrenc: Trio for clarinet, cello & piano in E flat, Op. 44; Rebikov: Berceuse; Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F; Wolf-Ferrari: Serenade for Strings.
June
Fri
1
Let's take a walk around the Bloch with his Concerto Grosso and more
Sun
3
Weber: Euryanthe
Mon
4
Poulenc and Durey Harpsichord Music; Bernstein Conducts and Plays Piano Concertos of Shostakovich, Ravel and Poulenc (Bernstein 100); 
Drake's Village Brass Band... University of South Carolina Wind Ensemble: Bernstein Transcriptions for Wind Band
Tue
5
Telemann: Ouverture Suite in D Major, TWV 55:D17; Gounod: Tobie (Oratorio); J. S. Bach: Cantata for the 1st Sunday after Trinity [Trinity 1 = Corpus Christi] BWV 75: 'Die Elenden sollen essen'; Nicola (Antonio) Porpora: Violin Sonata No. 5 in G minor; Robert Simpson: Symphony No. 9; Couperin: Pieces de clavecin, Book 1 (selections)
Wed
6
Host's Choice
Thu
7
New Releases . A Sampling of new acquisitions from the WWUH library.
Fri
8
What's an LP?
Sun
10
Porpora: Germanico in Germania
Mon
11
Brubeck: Nocturnes; Bernstein: Fancy Free, Chichester Psalms, Facsimile (Bernstein 100); Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Vaclav Nelhybel Conducts the 5th U. S. Army Band
Tue
12
Viotti: Violin Concerto #22 in a; Beethoven: String Quartet in f, Op. 95 "Serioso"; Jongen: Symphonie Concertante für Orgel und Orchester, Op. 81; Leighton: Mass, Op. 44
Wed
13
Rawsthorne: Symphony No. 1; El Sabio: Cantigas; Godard: String Quartet; Reicha: Wind Quartet; Graun: Viola da Gamba Concerto
Thu
14
Host's Choice.
Fri
15
Music of a fellow Milwaukeean - Otto Luening
Sun
17
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde; Brahms: Die Schone Magelone
Mon
18
Marc-André Hamlin - In a State of Jazz; Poulenc: Gloria; Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms; Fauré: Ballade for Piano and Orchestra (Bernstein 100); Price: Symphony #3
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Royal Norwegian Navy Band: Percy Grainger - Music for Wind Band Volume 1
Tue
19
Converse: The Mystic Trumpeter; Enescu: String Quartet #1; Bottesini: Concerto #2 in b for double bass & orchestra; Beethoven: String Quartet in F, Op. 18, #1
Wed
20
Gluck: Symphonies; Olson: Requiem selections; Taneyev: String Quartet No. 5; Dubois: Cello Sonata; Pinto: Grand Sonata
Thu
21
Host's Choice.
Fri
22
Celebrating the life of Darius Milhaud
Sun
24
DelTredici: Child Alice; Offenbach: The Isle of Tulipatan
Mon
25
Monday Night at the Movies: Williams: The Last Jedi; 50 Years - 2001 A Space Odyssey; North 2001 A Space Odyssey - rejected score
Drake's Village Brass Band ... United States Air Force Band, Colonel Arnald D. Gabriel: Warhorses
Tue
26
Telemann: Ouverture Suite in A Major, TWV 55:A2;   Gounod: Symphony No. 2 in E-flat major;
J. S. Bach: Cantata for the 4th Sunday after Trinity [Trinity 4] BWV 185: 'Barmherziges Herze der ewigen Liebe'; Nicola (Antonio) Porpora: Violin Sonata No. 6 in C major; Gounod: Petite Symphonie for 9 wind instruments; Robert Simpson: Symphony No. 10; Couperin: Pieces de clavecin, Book 1 (selections)
Wed
27
Raff: Symphony No. 11, "Winter"; Sweelinck : Psalms; Muthel: Concerto for Horns; Rheinberger: Piano Trio;
Reger: Variations and Fugue
Thu
28
Host's Choice.
Fri
29
Host's Choice


  
Thursday Evening Classics
 
              Library
 
Thursday Evening Classics
Composer Birthdays for May and June 2018
 
May 3
1649 (bapt) Johann Valentin Meder
1729 Florian Leopold Gassmann
1737 Friedrich Schwindl
1886 Marcel Dupre
1873 Nikolay Tcherepnin
1939 Jonathan Harvey
 
May 10
1697 Jean Marie Leclair
1760 Claude-Joseph Rouget de L'isle
1888 Max Steiner
1894 Dimitri Tiomkin
1916 Milton Babbitt
 
Jean Marie Leclair
Birth: May 10, 1697 in Lyons, France
Death: October 22, 1764 in Paris, France
The son of Antoine Leclair, a Lyons lace-maker and amateur cellist, Jean-Marie Leclair was one of 8 children, 6 of whom became violinists. Jean-Marie was often referred to as "the elder" to distinguish him from a younger brother who went by the same name. Leclair was considered a master of both the violin and his father's lacemaking trade by the time he reached adulthood. He intended to follow his father's profession, but in 1722 he was hired as a dancer and ballet-master at Turin, where he likely studied the violin with Giovanni Battista Somis. In 1723 he went to Paris, securing a patron in Joseph Bonnier and publishing his first book of violin sonatas. From 1726-1728 he was again in Turin, studying with Somis while continuing to earn his living as a dancer and composer of ballet music for the Teatro Regio. On his return to Paris, Leclair published a second book of violin sonatas and made his debut at the Concert Spirituel, performing his own sonatas and concertos. Performances of his own music in London, Kassel (where Leclair engaged in a musical "duel" with famed Italian violinist Pietro Locatelli) and Paris earned Leclair a reputation as one of the leading figures of the new French school of violinist-composers. Between 1733-1737 he held a post at the court of Louis XV, but from 1738 he spent 3 months a year at the court of Orange, and from 1740 the remaining 9 months in the service of François Du Liz at The Hague. In 1743 he settled in Paris, where in 1746 his Scylla et Glaucus, an opéra tragédie, was performed by the Académie Royale de Musique. Shortly before his death he separated from his second wife and went to live in a seedy suburb of Paris. On the morning of October 23, 1764 he was found murdered on his own doorstep, almost certainly by his own nephew, though the culprit was never brought to justice. The official investigation of Leclair's suspicious death incriminated both his nephew and his second wife, but neither was ever formally charged with his murder. In addition to violin sonatas, Leclair's published music includes several collections of violin duets, trio sonatas, and concertos. Of his theatre music only Scylla et Glaucus survives. As a violinist Leclair was renowned for his musicianship and his technical brilliance. He was also regarded as a difficult colleague. Leclair took the Italian sonata da chiesa and the sonata da camera and infused them with a stylistic elegance derived largely from the ballet music of Jean-Baptiste Lully. Fittingly, he composed almost exclusively for the violin (he did compose one opera in 1746, but the work never entered the Parisian repertory). His significance as a teacher of the violin, however, is perhaps greater. With a string of pupils including notable French violinists L'abbé le fils, Jean-Josephe Rudolphe, and Pierre Gaviniès, Leclair can truly be called the father of the modern French violin school.
 
May 17
1732 Francesco Pasquale Ricci
1800 Carl Friedrich Zollner
1808 Charles-Louis-Adolphe
1819 Johann Nepomuk Kafka
1866 Erik Satie
1901 Werner Egk (Werner Mayer)
1923 Peter Mennin
 
Erik Satie
Birth: May 17, 1866 in Honfleur, France
Death: July 1, 1925 in Paris, France
Satie spent most of his childhood living with grandparents and an eccentric uncle in Honfleur, where he had his first piano lessons. He then moved to Paris to join his father, and enrolled at the Conservatoire, where he studied piano and solfeggio, but failed to meet minimum requirements and was dismissed in 1882. He was described as 'gifted but indolent'. Satie left Paris in 1886, to join the infantry in Arras, but he found military life distasteful and intentionally courted illness to avoid duty. Among his earliest compositions were sets of 3 Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes for piano, evoking the ancient world by means of pure simplicity, monotonous repetition, and highly original modal harmonies. His early music is most noteworthy for having been written at a time when Wagner's music was dominant in Paris. During this period Satie was earning his living as a café pianist in Montmartre. He also contributed to the café repertory with songs and little waltzes. In 1898, however, he retired to the industrial suburb of Arcueil-Cachan, where he lived in self-imposed poverty for the rest of his life. He began to write works with bizarre titles, for example the Trois pièces en forme de poire for piano four-hands, childlike in their simplicity, incorporating pieces composed independently as well as popular songs of the time. But, realizing that without a sound contrapuntal technique he would not make progress, he then enrolled at the Schola Cantorum (1905-12), where he was taught by d'Indy and Roussel. His music took on a more academic and rigorous quality, and also began to exhibit the dry wit that would become hallmarks of his style. In 1911 Ravel performed some of Satie's early piano pieces and Debussy conducted his own orchestration of two of the Gymnopédies. Spurred on by the success of these ventures, Satie began to compose more abundantly, continuing to produce sets of small instrumental pieces with absurd titles such as Dried up embryos and Three real flabby preludes (for a dog). Often, as in the piano set Sports et divertissements, the performer is confronted by instructions which appear either absurd or ironically humorous. Satie's modest, mocking art endeared him to a new generation of French composers about the time of World War I. In 1915 he was discovered by Jean Cocteau, and helped create the famous group of French composers, Les Six, which was fashioned after Cocteau's artistic ideal of simplicity in the extreme. Cocteau and Satie collaborated on the ballet Parade, whose score is unconventional in its discontinuous form, repetitive material, and inclusion in the orchestra of a typewriter, a revolver, and other unusual instruments. Perhaps Satie's greatest achievement was to integrate music-hall and other well-known tunes and techniques into so-called serious music. Much of his music has a subdued character, and its charm comes through in its directness and its lack of adherence to any one style. Often his melodies are melancholy and hesitant, his moods exotic or humorous, and his compositions as a whole, short. He was a musical maverick who influenced Debussy and Ravel.
 
May 24
1754 Giacomo Conti
1781 Louis-Francois Dauprat
  
May 31
1656 Marin Marais
1804 Jeanne-Louise Farrenc Dumont
1866 Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov
 
Marin Marais
Birth: May 31, 1656 in Paris, France
Death: August 15, 1728 in Paris, France
Marais was the preeminent bass viol player in turn-of-the-17th century France. The son of a shoemaker, Marias was a choirboy at St Germain-l'Auxerrois with Michel Richard de Lalande. He studied the bass viol for 6 months with Sainte-Colombe and by 1675 was playing in the Académie orchestra under Lully. In 1679 he obtained a court post as an ordinaire in the musique de la chambre du roi, a position he held until his retirement in 1725 . A skilled composer as well as performer, he published his first book of pièces de violes in Paris in 1686. In the same year his Idylle dramatique was performed at Versailles. After Lully's death in 1687, Marais collaborated with Louis Lully on Alcide before composing 3 tragédies en musique of his own for performance at the Opéra, of which Alcyone was particularly admired for the thundering multiple bass parts of its tempest scene. Marais's Pièces en trio, published in partbooks in 1692, was the first such collection by a French composer to appear. It was followed by four collections for one to three viols and a volume of trios with violin. In addition to dance movements they include highly expressive preludes, a virtuoso set of couplets on La folia, tombeaux to his teachers and son, and numerous colorful pièces de caractère. The defining qualities of Marais's viol music are its craftsmanship, stylistic refinement, and mastery of idiom. Admired as a player, Marais was also much in demand as a teacher. He was succeeded at court by his eldest son, Vincent (1677-1737), in 1725. Another son, Roland (c.1685-c.1750), published two collections of pièces de viole. Although he composed 4 operas, he is primarily remembered for his some 600 compositions for various combinations of bass viols. These works were in the French tradition of collections of various pieces, rather than the Italian concertos and sonatas. The collections, ranging from 7 to 41 pieces each, consist primarily of dances, fantasies, chaconnes, rondeaux, tombeaux, and pièces de caractère. These last are short, colorful works including descriptive titles such as Les voix humaines and Cloche ou carillon. There is even one work that is meant to describe an operation for the removal of a bladder stone. Marais intended these pieces to be played on any instruments, but they are in fact idiomatically suited for the bass viol and represent the finest collection of pieces for that instrument. It is as the greatest and most important composer for the bass viol that Marais is remembered today.
 
June 7
1897 George Szell
                                                                                                 
June 14
1730 Antonio Sacchini
1763 Johannes Simon Mayr
1835 Nicolai Rubinstein
1854 Frederik Rung
1867 Roland Forrest Seitz
1932 Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
 
June 21
1732 Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach
1862 Henry Holden Huss
1892 Hilding Rosenberg
1899 Pavel Haas
1932 Lalo Schifrin
 
June 28
1491 Henry VIII
1815 Robert Franz
1831 Joseph Joachim
1852 Hans Huber
1874 Oley Speaks
1902 Richard Rodgers
1913 George Lloyd
  

 
 
  

SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "lyric theater" program
with Keith Brown
Programming selections for the months of 
May and June, 2018

 
SUNDAY,  MAY 6 
 Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost.
 Spoken word presentations have alwas been part of my broad spectrum oncept of lyric theater programming. I have broadcast recordings of many of the plays of William Shakespeare. Often these were on early stereo Decca/Argo LP's. These studio recordings, made between 1957 and 1964, were part of Decca's series of the complete recorded works of Shakespeare, issued in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. It was an audio project of historic significance equal to Decca's first-ever complete studio recording series of Wagner's Ring cycle of operas made during the same period with Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and a singing cast of some of the greatest operatic voices of the mid twentieth century. Decca's Shakespeare project engaged renowned director George Rylands and the Marlowe Dramatic Society of Cambridge University, plus other "professional players" who were the best Shakespearean actors and actresses that Britain had to offer. Many of them remain famous names even now in the twenty first century. In 2016 the entire Decca Shakespeare series- all thirty seven plays, the sonnets and narrative poems- was reissued on compact disc to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the playwright's death. I have acquired the 100 CD boxed set, and I draw upon its discs again this Sunday as I did most recently onNovember 19th of last year with my broadcast of the tragic history play Richard III. Today I offer you an early comedy that could date as far back as 1591 in its earliest scripted form: Love's Labour's Lost. John Dover Wilson, the editor of the New Shakespeare Edition of the play recorded here, along with other Shakespeare scholars, suspects that it was written as a subtle satire on certain important figures in the court of Good Queen Bess. The play was presented before her at Christmas of 1597. The courtly sendup also presents us with a cavalcade of notables in circulation in Shakespeare's London. The character called Biron/Berowne could be seen as a  stand-in for the Bard himself. Shakespeare is the soul of wit, but before him there were the "University Wits," and their ingenious wordplay reverberates in the mouths of courtiers in this "Pleasant Conceited Comedie," or so it was styled on the title page of the 1598 printed text.
 
SUNDAY, MAY 13
von Suppe, Il Ritorno del Marinaio.  
The traditions of Viennese operetta begin with Franz von Suppe (1819-95). He wrote thirty one operettas and other lyric theater music besides, although today he is remembered only for two pops concert favorites, the "Light Cavalry" and "Poet and Peasant" overtures. Without doubt the single best one of his operettas- the one that most closely approaches the genius of Johann Strauss the Younger- is Boccaccio (1879). On Sunday, August 13,2000 I broadcast a 1974 German EMI Electrola recording of Boccaccio in its EMI Classics CD reissue. Another one of von Suppe's tuneful lyric stageworks is his romantic opera in two acts Il Ritorno del Marinaio ("The Mariner's Return," 1885). It seems to have been composed originally to a German language libretto for its premiere production at Hamburg.

 There does exist, however, an Italian language version of the wordbook prepared by an anonymous translator. It comes along with the published piano-vocal score and also appears partly in von Suppe's full autograph score of this delightful work as preserved in the Vienna City and State library. It was the Italian version of "The Mariner's Return" that was taken up for recorded performance by Rijeka Opera in 2016. Rijeka is a city on the Adriatic Sea in what was once Croatia/Dalmatia and in von Suppe's time part of the Austrian empire. (The place was known as Fiume in Italian.) Von Suppe was born in Split (in Italian Spalato) farther down the Dalmatian coast. A conductor who is a native of the region, Adriano Martinolli D'Arcy (born in Trieste) leads the Rijeka Opera Symphony Orchestra and Rijeka Opera Choir. The story of "The Mariner's Return" is set at Lesina, farther yet down the coast from Split, where a long-absent warship comes back to port. The homecoming feast for the sailors includes a ballet sequence of Dalmatian folk dances. Il Ritorno del Marinaio comes to us on two German cpo compact discs, released in 2017. At the staged premiere of von Suppe's work in Hamburg the evening's entertainment was rounded out by the presentation of Act Three from Verdi's Il Trovatore. I will follow that precedent in this Sunday's broadcast.
 
SUNDAY, MAY 20
 Leclair,Scylla et Glaucus.
  If he had written more than one single opera Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) might have become as famous in the history of French opera as his contemporary Jean-Philippe Rameau. Leclair failed to capitalize on the success of his Scylla et Glaucus (1746) by composing another similar work in the form of the French tragedie en musique. In the 1740's this lyric theater artform, created in the seventeenth century by Lully, was in the period of its final full flowering. Leclair was a virtuoso violinist who wrote mostly instrumental music. His orchestration for Scylla et Glaucus  is even more colorful and inventive than anything by Rameau. Dance sequences were always important in French opera. Scylla et Glaucus is unequalled in its instrumental dance numbers. Leclair's writing for voice inFrench language is also beyond compare. Yet the French baroque tragedie lyrique went out of fashion within a few years and Leclair's singularopera passed into oblivion. Two centuries and more later in 1986 Scylla et Glaucus was revived in staged production by Opera de Lyon. (Lyon was the city of Leclair's birth.) In the subsequent recording sessions of this remarkable opera in London it was that pioneer in baroque performance practice John Eliot Gardiner who was conducting his own Monteverdi Choir and the period instrument group the English Baroque Soloists, with an international cast of vocal soloists trained in baroque singing style. The French Erato label released Scylla et Glaucus in1988 on three compact discs. I broadcast the Erato release on Sunday, May 12, 1991. Baroque performance practice has gotten even better among a later generation of musicians following in Gardiner's footsteps. Listen this Sunday for Leclair's masterpiece as recorded in 2014 in the opera house of Versailles palace, with Sebastien d'Herin directing the singers and players of Les Nouveaux Caracteres. A different French label, Alpha Classics came out with this new recording of S & G in 2015, again on three silver discs.
 
SUNDAY, MAY 27
 Boublil, Miss Saigon Weill, Johnny Johnson 
The Memorial Day holiday was originally called Decoration Day, when people decorated with flowers the graves of those who fought and died in the American civil War of 1861-65. Early in the twentieth century, after the First World War the holiday was renamed and came to honor by extension those Americans who served in or were killed in conflicts in foreign parts. There are many Americans still alive now in the twenty first century who fought in the Vietnam War. On this the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend of 2018 we'll reflect on the Vietnam era as I once again present Miss Saigon. Some of the best contemporary works in the popular American lyric theater genre have come not from Broadway but from the London musical scene. The same team of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg who brought you Les Miserables also gave birth to Miss Saigon (1989), which is a modern reinterpretation of  Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The story has been reset in the  aftermath of the Vietnam War, 1975-78. London's reinvention of the traditional American musical brought it closer to opera. Miss Saigon is sung throughout- an upgrade of the traditional American musical comedy with its spoken-word dialog. Miss Saigon aroused controversy over its casting that brought attention to the racist/misogynist aspects of the plot- a controversy that overshadowed its first New York production. Way back in 1926 there were some who thought the element of interracial marriage in Jerome Kern's Showboat was scandalous, so this is nothing new in the history of American lyric theater. You will hear the original London cast recording as released on two Geffen CD's. I'm convinced the passion of the singing in this recording will move you, if not the poignancy of Miss Saigon's plight.

    Then you'll get to hear an American antiwar play with extensive incidental music. Johnny Johnson (1936) was the first stateside commission for the German expatriot composer Kurt Weill. There was a monaural recording made of its 1956 stage revival as issued on a single Heliodor LP. I broadcast that LP on Sunday, May 24, 1987. Johnny Johnson is the story of an American doughboy driven mad by the horrors of trench warfare on the  Western Front. Actor Burgess Meredith portrays Johnny and serves as narrator. The sound of the Polydor CD transfer of Johnny Johnson is such an improvement that you wouldn't believe its not in stereo. The1987 CD reissue was broadcast on the Sunday of the 1991 Memorial Day weekend following Miss Saigon, which got another airing on its own on Sunday, May 27, 2007. Listen for both of these works back-to-back today.
 
SUNDAY, JUNE 3
 Weber, Euryanthe  
Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe (1823) was intended to build upon the success of his famous Der Freischutz. Euryanthe contains much beautiful music. Its overture is occasionally performed in concert situations, but the opera itself very rarely. No one who has heard it in its entirety could doubt the boldness of Weber's conception. It's his only opera that is sung throughout with no spoken dialog. Euryanthe is also a classic example of a truly great operatic work that was ruined by a horrible libretto. Because he was a nice guy, Weber befriended the second rate poetess Helmina von Chezy and commissioned her to write him a libretto, since he knew she was hard up for money. Remember, she was the playwright of Rosamunde, Furstin von Zypern, the play for which Schubert provided his famous incidental music. That play was a big flop at its premiere in Vienna. The results were the same forEuryanthe the opera in its initial Viennese production. Critics condemned the libretto and praised the music. Since then Euryanthe has been hacked up in an attempt to compensate for its bad book.Weber himself had to rewrite the text extensively, but to no avail. In more recent times the opera has been restored to the form in which Weber originally set the text to music. Way back on Sunday, October 20, 1985 I presented an EMI recording of Euryanthe issued stateside on Angel stereo LP's. It was made in 1975 with the musical resources of the Staatskapelle Dresden and Chorus of Radio Leipzig under the direction of Marek Janowski. It featured a stellar cast of singers, among them the American soprano Jessye Norman and Swedish tenor Nicolai Gedda. There's another older recording of the opera in its restored state. It was taped in 1957 in the broadcast studios of Radio Berlin. The young Kurt Masur was conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. The German Relief label has issued on compact disc a series of these Radio Berlin recorded broadcasts from the post WWII era, some taped in monaural sound, some in very early stereo. The sound quality of this particular Relief CD issue is remarkably good.
 
SUNDAY, JUNE 10
Porpora, Germanico in Germania 
Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686-1768) was a contemporary of George Frideric Handel and one of the most important composers of Italian opera seria at the endof the baroque era. For a while when he was composing for the Opera of the Nobility company in London he was also Handel's rival. Porpora was in addition a teacher of opera singing, his most famous pupil being the castrato Farinelli. I have featured Porpora's music on this program on only one previous occasion. That was on Sunday, April 2. 2000 when I aired the cpo recording of a sacred work, his oratorio Il Gedeone ("Gideon," 1726). The opera seria called Germanico in Germania premiered in Rome in 1732 with an all-male cast, starring another one of Porpora's illustrious pupils, the castrato known as Caffarelli. The entire canon of Handel's Italian opere serie has been recorded in historically informed baroque instrumental and vocal practice. But Porpora's operas have lagged far behind in getting onto disc. This one has been issued in Decca's recent series of recordings of obscure Italian baroque operas. The last one I have aired was Pergolesi's Adriano in Siria (1734) on Sunday, October 22nd of last year. The high male voice of Max Emanuel Cencic is heard in many of the works in this series. Cencic specializes in those  heroic roles that were once intended for castrati. Here he portrays Germanicus, a commander of the Roman army in Teutonic territory along the river Rhine. Jan Tomasz Adamus leads the period instrumentalists of the Capella Cracoviensis.Germanico in Germania was recorded in the studios of Radio Krakow in Poland in 2016. Decca released the recording on three compact discs in 2017.
 
SUNDAY, JUNE 17
 Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde  Brahms, Die schone Magelone 
The German tenor Jonas Kaufmann could be regarded as the preeminent male operatic voice of our time. Kaufmann can do it all! From the heaviest Wagnerian roles to light pop concert fare. He has also tackled Mahler's 'The Song of the Earth" orchestrated song cycle (1909), a work intended for two complimentary voices, one higher, one lower in range. Kaufmann has performed all six songs solo, employing his lower, baritonal range superbly. He was introduced to Mahler's song cycle as a student at the age of twenty through the vintage EMI recording with Otto Klemperer conducting, as sung by mezzo Christa Ludwig and tenor Fritz Wunderlich. On Sunday, June 17, 2012 I aired the 1964 DGG recording made in Vienna, with the native Viennese Josef Krips conducting. The two complimentary voices in this case were those of tenor Wunderlich and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Performing Das Lied von der Erde live onstage solo without interruption requires considerable stamina. It's a daunting task, but Kaufmann has carried it off. As proof of his accomplishment he recorded the entire work in the "Golden Hall" of the Musikverein in Vienna in June of 2016. Jonathan Nott conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. A Sony Classical release from 2017.
Between the years 1861 and 1869 Johannes Brahms set to music fifteen poems from Ludwig Tieck's chivalric romance Die schone Magelone (1796). In adapting this medieval French tale to German language Tieck was appealing to that nostalgia or yearning for a former, purer age that is the essence of nineteenth century German Romanticism. That's why "The fair Magelone" ranked as one of the author's most popular works. Brahms' treatment of Tieck's lyrics possesses all the beautiful simplicity of folk song. Brahms was following in the Lieder tradition established by Schubert in classic examples like Der Lindenbaum, which German speaking folk accept as practically a folk song. The song cycleDie schone Magelone also possesses an astonishing unity, considering its bit-by-bit composition. By the year 1889 it had become customary to perform Magelone as a parlor or chamber music room entertainment, with a narrator providing spoken-word segments between the songs to carry the story forward. It's in that form that Brahms' Lieder were presented on Sunday, September 17, 2000 in a Berlin Classics CD release from 1999, with the distinguished German tenor Peter Schreier, accompanied on piano by Peter Rosel. Die schone Magelone was recorded anew in 2014 without spoken narration in the studios of Bavarian Radio, Munich. Baritone Christian Gerhaher interprets the fifteen romanzen. (Some consider him to be the great Fischer-Dieskau's successor.) The pianist is Gerold Huber, a longtime collaborator with the vocalist. Bavarian Radio's proprietary label BR Klassik co-produced the recording, which was issued by Sony Classical in 2017 on a single silver disc.
 
SUNDAY, JUNE 24
Del Tredici, Child Alice Offenbach, 
The Island of Tulipatan I like to think of the last Sunday in June as Stonewall Sunday, referring to the Stonewall Inn gay bar and the gay riot that took place in Greenwich village on the last weekend of June, 1969. The Stonewall rebellion in New York City gave birth to the gay liberation movement worldwide and to so much of the history of the struggle for gay, lesbian, bi and trans rights that would follow. On Stonewall Sunday I endeavor to broadcast lyric theater music by gay or lesbian composers. Contemporary American composer David Del Tredici (b. 1937) certainly qualifies as openly gay. His Fantasy Pieces for piano were included in a CRI compact disc compilation from 1996 devoted to gay American composers. He's something of a lyric theater composer, too. Child Alice (1977-81), as an evening's length work for the concert hall, falls into the same genre as Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The cantata received a Pulitzer Prize in 1980. Del Tredici keeps working on his Alice concept and has come out with several closely related compositions inspired by Lewis Carroll's famous literary fantasy Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass. The latest incarnation of Child Alice was recorded in 2016 in Jordan Hall in Boston. Gil Rose conducts the symphony orchestra known as the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, with soprano Courtenay Budd. The next year it came out on two BMOP Sound compact discs. (BMOP is the orchestra's own label.) The first of the two parts of Child Alice is subtitled 'In Memory of a Summer Day." Seeing that we've just passed the Summer solstice the broadcast of Del Tredici's cantata is all that more appropriate.

Now for something that could be considered a trans opera about a prince who becomes a princess and a princess who turns into a prince. Once before, back on Sunday, June 18, 2000 I presented a Swedish Sterling Records CD of excerpts from Wilhelm Stenhammar's romantic opera Tirfing (1898), which has a leading character who could be described as a female-to-male transsexual, and a Viking swordsman at that! Jacques Offenbach's The Island of Tulipatan (1868) is a gay little burlesque of an operetta in one act. It received its first English language recording by LOONY, or Light Opera of New York, made live in performance at New York City's Theater 80 in May of 2017. The translationof the original French libretto is in entirely idiomatic modern American English. The Island of Tulipatan, as you will hear it on a single Albany Records CD, is an absolute hoot! Tyson Deaton conducts the little pit orchestra and a cast of five singers.
   That BMOP Sound recording of Child Alice comes from our station's ever-growing library of recorded classical music and opera. So do the recordings of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and the Brahms song cycle. Tulipatan comes out of my own collection of opera on CD. In fact, almost everything else you will hear in this two-month period of programming is taken from my collection. For a third time Rob Meehan has loaned to me for broadcast his own recording of Miss Saigon. Rob Meehan is a former classics deejay here at WWUH and a record collector in the field of the "alternative" classical music of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Thanks as always goes to Kevin O'Toole, our station's operations director, for mentoring me in the preparation of these notes for cyber-publication.
Never Miss Your Favorite WWUH Programs Again!
WWUH Round Logo Introducing... the WWUH Archive!

We are very excited to announce
that all WWUH programs are now available on-demand 
using 
the "Program Archive" link 
on our home page,   
 
  This means that if you missed one of your favorite shows, or if you want to listen to parts of it again, you can do so easily using the Archive link.  Programs are available for listening for 
two weeks after their air date.
  
 
Enjoy the music, even when you can't listen "live"!
West Hartford Symphony Orchestra
 
In Collaboration with the WWUH Classical Programming we are pleased to partner with the West Hartford Symphony Orchestra to present their announcements and schedule to enhance our commitment to being part of the Greater Hartford Community
 
West Hartford Symphony Orchestra
Richard Chiarappa, Music Director
whso.org
(860) 521-4362
 
2017 - 2018 Season Schedule

Annual Armed Forces Day Pops Concert
Armed Forces Day Pops Concert
May 19th, 2018 / 7 p.m.
West Hartford Town Hall Auditorium

For information, 860-521-4362 or
  http://whso.org/ .
 The Connecticut Valley Symphony Orchestra


Great music and great musicians!  Food for the soul!  Affordable prices!  The Connecticut Valley Symphony Orchestra offers these benefits to all of you in the greater Hartford Community. 
 
Become a subscriber to the CVSO and you'll get it all-and four great concerts for the price of three!  Our orchestra is supported by musicians' dues, grants, contributions, and subscriptions.  In light of  the economic challenges we face, your support is crucial.

The CVSO has been operating for 87 years.  Our musicians, serious amateurs and music educators, range from teenagers to seniors, and have a fabulous 2017-2018 season of classical, romantic and modern music lined up for your listening pleasure.  Here are our scheduled performances:

June 10, 2018: Pops - "Looney Tunes"
Mouret : Suite of Symphonies: Rondo              
Rossini: William Tell Overture
Smetana : Dance of the Comedians
Beethoven : Symphony No. 5, 1st Movement
Rossini: Barber of Seville Overture
Von Suppe : Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna
Offenbach: Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld
Gounod : Dance of the Marionettes


All programs are subject to change
Concerts are Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 120 Sigourney Street, Hartford.

For further information: 
The Musical Club of Hartford
 
  
The Musical Club of Hartford, Inc., which celebrated its 125 year history in 2015-2016, is an organization whose primary goal is to nurture the Musical Arts and promote excellence in music, both among seasoned music lovers as well as the younger generations. The Musical Club makes music more readily available to people of all ages and social backgrounds in our community.

For further information: http://musicalclubhartford.org/
 The Hartford Chorale
  
 
2018 Season
EVENTS

The Hartford Chorale is pleased to announce our 2018 season!

We conclude our season with a dramatic interpretation of Orff's Carmina Burana with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.
Carmina Burana, Festival of Fate Friday, June 8, 2018 - Sunday, June 10, 2018 Belding Theater, The Bushnell Carolyn Kuan, Conductor

For further information: Hartford Chorale 860-547-1982 or www.hartfordchorale.org .

Manchester Symphony Orchestra
Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale
Bringing Music to our Community for 58 Years!
 
The Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale is a nonprofit volunteer organization that brings quality orchestral and choral music to the community, provides performance opportunities for its members, and provides education and performance opportunities for young musicians in partnership with Manchester schools and other Connecticut schools and colleges.
 
Joseph Hodge, Orchestra Artistic Director
Dr. Carolina Flores, Chorale Artistic Director

Concert 5 - Chorale/Orchestra "Pops" "An American Road Trip"
Saturday, June 9, 2018 at 7:30 pm
Bailey Auditorium, Manchester High School
134 Middle Turnpike E, Manchester, CT
Discovering the USA through music
Ives : Variations on America
Copland : Shaker Variations
Bullock : Here's to the Big Apple
Rodgers : 'Oklahoma' from Richard Rodgers in Concert
Wick : Yellow Rose of Texas
Copland : Rodeo: Hoe-Down
Grofé : Grand Canyon Suite: On The Trail
Journey's Greatest Hits
From Sea to Shining Sea


Program details are subject to change.
Beth El Temple in West Hartford
Music at Beth El Temple in West Hartford is under the aegis of The Beth El Music & Arts Committee (BEMA). With the leadership of Cantor Joseph Ness, it educates and entertains the community through music.
 
BETH EL TEMPLE (BEMA) 2018 Season
with Cantor Joseph Ness, conductor

Music University (topic: music of Israel) May 16 & 23, 2018 - 7:30pm

ISRAEL 70th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT:
June 3rd, 2018, 7pm
Featuring Israeli pop star Micha Biton and the music of Israel.
Open to the Public. Plenty of FREE Parking.
Beth El Temple
2626 Albany Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117
Phone: (860) 233-9696
http://betheltemplemusic.com/
E-mail: bema@betheltemplemusic.com
 
 
Open to the Public. Plenty of FREE Parking.
Beth El Temple
2626 Albany Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117
Phone: (860) 233-9696
E-mail: bema@betheltemplemusic.com


How To Listen To WWUH
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In Central CT and Western MA, WWUH can be heard at 91.3 on the FM dial.  Our programs are also carried at various times through out the day on this station:

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