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Broadcasting as a Community Service  

91 .3FM
 


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WWUH 91.3 FM
Program Guide
Sept/Oct., 2016
In This Issue
40 Years Ago on WWUH
Program Idea?
Celtic Airs Update
In The Beginning
Classical Music on WWUH
Composer Birthdays
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
WWUH Archive Now Online
How To Listen
Join Our List
 

FALL FUND DRIVE

Listener Support is the key to WWUH's existence as the majority of the funding that keeps WWUH on the air comes from our listeners.  The University of Hartford is very generous with their support which includes space, utilities, insurance, internet, and a dozen other in-kind services, but as a Community Service station it makes sense that WWUH should be supported by the listeners we serve and we do this through over the air fund drives.

 We are very proud of the fact that we have been able to keep our on air appeals to only twice a year and this year is no exception.

Our 2016 Fall Fund Drive kicks off with Wild Wayne and the Rock & Roll Memory Machine at 6pm on Sunday, October 23 and ends the following Sunday at 6pm.

Our goal this year is $50,000 . . . no small sum to be sure but it's what we need to keep Public Alternative Radio alive and we are confident that our listeners will come through for us.  As usual we'll have some premiums to offer as thank yous to those who donate and you'll be able to contribute over the phone or securely on line.    More details next month as the event gets  closer.

John Ramsey 
General Manager 

40 Years Ago on WWUH
R- George Michael Evica

 
FLASH BACK:  1976
     Frank Sturgis, who served in Fidel Castro's revolutionary army and later trained Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, spoke about the JFK Assassination in the South Cafeteria in an event that was broadcast live on WWUH on the evening of November 22, 1976.  (Editors note:  Frank Sturgis, (also known as Frank Fioni), had been one of the Watergate burglars.  
  
Got An Idea for a Radio Program?
 

 We might have some late night (midnight and 3am) shows opening up this fall. If you have a unique idea for a radio program and/or have an interest in possibly filling in on 91.3 as a late night volunteer email us with a description of the type of show you propose and a playlist of the type of music you might play. Send it to WWUH

 
If we like your show idea and something opens up we'll let you know. We can provide on-air training so even if you've never done radio before if you are interested/available for some late night volunteer work and have a neat show idea feel free to email us.

 

C
Celtic Airs Update
Girsa
 
    
To Celtic music lovers and faithful listeners to Celtic Airs  over the past 23 years
 
          I retired from my real job  (Family Physician) on 7/8/16. I plan to continue as producer and host of my weekly radio program (Tuesdays 6:00-9:00 AM) and producer/promoter of the WWUH/Celtic Airs benefit concert series for the time being.
 
          In April 2017 I'll be departing CT for an extended period of travel. Whether I will be able to resume these roles at WWUH upon my return is uncertain. There will come a time when I will be moving from CT, bringing to an end my 25+ year association with this wonderful radio station which is such a tremendous asset to the community.
 
          All things considered, it seems to me that the time has come to see if there are any community members interested in possibly helping the show continue when I move out of town, probably next year. Current WWUH volunteers will of course be given the first option to fill my place and thankfully we have a new member who should be able to cover for me on the short/mid term.  
 
          So, here is where YOU come into the picture! If you or someone you know would like help ensure that Celtic music continues on Tuesday mornings, contact me at celticairs@cox.net
         
          The interested individual will have to complete the WWUH training program. 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 which could include being a fill in host for any program they feel capable of handling, staying within the usual genre for that program.  And keep in mind that this is an all volunteer station.
 
          After completing this process, the WWUH executive committee will review the individual's assets and accomplishments and decide whether he/she would be suitable to become the producer/host of the new program.
 
          Assuming responsibility for continuing the concert series is optional. If the prospective show host would like to continue producing concerts, I would be glad to share my knowledge of this process with him/her.
         
          After 23 years of Celtic Airs, and a variety of Celtic programs during prior years, I'm certainly hoping that we can find people interested in carrying on the tradition. 
 
                                      Steve Dieterich


  
The Beginning

 
WWUH Staff_ 1969

WWUH's winding existence began in the fall of 1966 as a concept in the minds of Clark Smidt, a University of Hartford freshman, and a small group of fellow students.  These folks, along with a handful of UH faculty and staff, believed not only that the University of Hartford deserved its own radio station but that such a station could provide the campus and surrounding community with programming every bit as good as what was being aired on commercial stations of the day-maybe even better!  For the next two years, Mr. Smidt and this original staff of core "UH Radio" volunteers would face the challenges well known to those who have elaborate dreams that carry a generous price tag.  Pulling together funds from a couple of sources and relying on the benevolence of WTIC (who graciously provided them with a transmitter, for free!), the station was put on the air at 4:05 p.m. on July 15, 1968.

 In November of that year, the station was dedicated in the memory of the late Louis K. Roth, who had been a regent of the University and a philanthropist, who had earmarked $40,000 for the new station.  This money kept the station on the air for its first three or four years.

The Roth Family's generosity towards WWUH is commemorated for posterity in a bronze plaque mounted prominently on the wall next the station's Air Studio in the Harry Jack Gray Center on campus.
The plaque reads:

"The Louis K. Roth Memorial Station. WWUH Radio.  Dedicated on November 23, 1968 to the memory of Louis K. Roth, regent of the University, 1961 - 1967.  An outstanding civic leader and philanthropist, Mr. Roth believed deeply in young men and women. His encouragement and generosity, and that of his family, helped make possible the creation, expansion and continued operation of WWUH."

WWUH began broadcasting in a time remembered for political turmoil and social revolt.  This feeling of revolt was very strongly felt by students in general and certainly by the students at the University of Hartford.  Although the school newspaper was very out-spoken at the time, WWUH was set in a slightly more conservative mind frame, concentrating more on high quality programming (much of which did reflect the issues of the time), than on being controversial.       

WWUH Classical Programming - Sept/Oct, 2016


WWUH Classical Programming September/October 2016

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
 
 


September
Thu
1
Martucci: Minuetto Op. 57 #2; Herschel: Symphony #14 in D; Mendelssohn: Songs without Words Op. 19; Humperdinck: Shakespeare Suites, Hansel & Gretel - Suite, Notturno in G; Pachelbel: Canon and Gigue, Toccata in C, Suite in G; Schumann: Piano Quintet in E flat Op. 44; Biebl: Ave Maria; Schoeck: Sommernacht Op. 58.
Fri
2
"Working Classical" to celebrate Labor Day
Sun
4
Blitzstein: The Cradle Will Rock, Airborne Symphony
Mon
5
Antheil: Tom Sawyer Overture; Joshua Rifkin Plays Scott Joplin Rags, Volume 1; Great Scenes from Porgy and Bess with Leontyne Price and William Warfield; Copland: Symphony #3 Drake's Village Brass Band... Brass Theatre II - Canadian Brass and Star of Indiana
Tue
6
Telemann: Overture-Suite in F major TWV 55:F14; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Robert Simpson: String Quartet No. 15; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major, K. 271 (1777); Reger: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of J.A. Hiller, Op. 100
Wed
7
Johann Baptist Vanhal: Symphony in G Minor; Philippe Verdelot: Madrigals; William Walton: Sonata for Violin and Piano; Joseph Wolfl: Piano Sonata in C Minor; Ferdinand Ries: Sonata for Violin and Piano
Thu
8
Dvorak: Poetic Tone Pictures Op. 85 #10 "Bacchanal"; Vivaldi: Flute Concerto in G Op. 10 #4/RV 435; L. Hofmann: Symphony in C; Francoeur: Suite in D; Dvorak: Carnival Overture Op. 92; Paisiello: Keyboard Concerto #4 in g; Dvorak: Nocturne for Violin and Piano in B Op. 40; Peter Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness; Dvorak: Symphony #7 in d minor Op. 70; Gemmingen: Violin Concerto #3 in D.
Fri
9
A real Pops concert - classical themes as popular music
Sun
11
Puccini: Edgar
Mon
12
A Requiem for Our Time - Stucky: Funeral Music for Queen Mary (after Purcell); Rautavaare: Dances with the Winds (Concerto for Flutes and Orchestra); Symphony #7 "Angel of Light"; Cantus Arcticus "Concerto for Birds and Orchestra; Joshua Rifkin Plays Scott Joplin Rags, Volume 2 Drake's Village Brass Band... A Requiem in Our Time - Finnish Brass Symphony Plays Rautavaara
Tue
13
Telemann: Suite Burlesque de Quichotte in G major TWV 55:G10; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Robert Simpson: String Quintet No. 1; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat major (No. 10), K. 365/316a (1779); Reger: Aus meinem Tagebuch, Op. 82, Vol. 3
Wed
14
Pavel Vranicky: Symphony in G Minor; Thomas Tallis: Mass for Four Voices; Robert Volkmann: String Quartet No. 4; Igor Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D; Georg Philipp Telemann: Violin Concertos; Giuseppe Torelli: Sonata
Thu
15
Brahms: Hungarian Dance #7; Cartellieri: Symphony #2; Parker: Fugue in c Op. 36 #3; Frank Martin: Ballade for Flute, String Orchestra and Piano; E. Halffter: Suite de las Doncellas; Hoffmeister: Symphony in C; Hubay: Violin Concerto #2 in E Op. 90; Schumann: Piano Trio #1 in d Op. 63; Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol Op. 34.
Fri
16
Host's Choice as Ron rides the rails tonight
Sun
18
Janacek: The Mikropulos Case
Mon
19
For Max - Maxwell Davies: Symphony #1; Cross Lane Fair; Renaissance Scottish Dances; Joshua Rifkin Plays Scott Joplin Rags, Volume 3 Drake's Village Brass Band... Peter Maxwell Davies Music for Brass - Wallace Collection
Tue
20
Telemann: Overture-Suite in A major TWV 55:A8; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Robert Simpson: String Quintet No. 2; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 11 in F major, K. 413/387a (1782); Reger: Sonata for Violin and Piano in E Minor, Op. 122
Wed
21
Johann Vogel: Symphony No. 3; Sebastian de Vivanco: Missa In Manus Tuas; Ottorino Respighi: Feste Romane; Giovanni Battista Viotti: Violin Concerto No. 6; Erno Dohanyi: Sonata in B Flat Major
Thu
22
Torke: Bright Blue Music; Steffani: Orlando Generoso - Overture & Dances; Haydn: Divertimento in G Hob. II:3; Bach: Two-Part Inventions #1-4 BWV 772-775; Abel: Cello Concerto in C; Flagello: Sea Cliffs; Grieg: Symphonic Dances; Ciurlionis: Fugue in b flat minor, Three Pieces on a Theme; Fils: Symphony in C; Schumann: Traumerei, Toccata Op. 7; Sarasate: Zapateado; Balada: Homage to Sarasate; Kozeluch: Symphony #4 in F.
Fri
23
Fall fell yesterday - it's the 1st full day of Autumn
Sun
25
Handel: L'Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Mon
26
Birthday Favs - Ives: Three Places in New England; Ruggles: Sun-Treader; Adams: The Chairman Dances; Shostakovich: Symphony #5; Heliotrope Bouquet - Piano Rags Played by William Bolcom Drake's Village Brass Band... Grimethorpe Colliery Band - Brass Off Soundtrack
Tue
27
Telemann: Overture-Suite in D major TWV 55:D6; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Robert Simpson: Quintet for Clarinet and Strings; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major, K. 414/385p (1782); Reger: Aus meinem Tagebuch, Op. 82, Vol. 4
Wed
28
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4; Johannes Tinctoris: Missa L'Homme Arme; Wilhelm Ramsoe: Quartet No. 2; Johann Joachim Quantz: Horn Concertos; Eugene Ysaye: Violin Sonata No. 1
Thu
29
Host's Choice
Fri
30
Celebrating the birth anniversary of Henri Casadesus
October
Sun
2
Mozart: Il Ratto dal Seraglio
Mon
3
Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing - The Classic Album;Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians; Pastimes and Piano Rags Played by William Bolcom Drake's Village Brass Band...US Air Force Band of Mid America - One of Our Own, Music of Clifton Williams
Tue
4
Telemann: Overture-Suite in A minor TWV 55:a7; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Robert Simpson: Quintet for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet and String Trio; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 13 in C major, K. 415/387b (1783);  Reger: Sonata for Violin and Piano in C Minor, Op. 139
Wed
5
Sergey Taneyev: Symphony No. 1; Max Reger: Songs; Alexander Scriabin: Twelve Etudes; Andrea Zani: Violin Concerto in E Minor; Maurice Ravel: Miroirs
Thu
6
Schubert/Liszt: Standchen; Vivaldi: Concerto in C RV187; J. M. Kraus: Symphony in e VB 141; Szymanowski: Romance in D Op. 23, Nocturne and Tarantella Op. 28; Hammerschmidt: Suite in g/G for Winds; Jean Prosper Gabriel-Marie: La Cinquantaine; Cui: Suite Miniature #1 Op. 20; Fasch: Overture (Suite) in B; Aguirre: Aires Nacionales Argentinos - Tristes; Goetz: Violin Concerto in G Op. 22; Ibert: Concertino da camera for Alto Saxophone.
Fri
7
Music for the Jewish High Holy Days
Sun
9
Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part One
Mon
10
Dutilleux: Symphony #1; Shadows of Time; Stravinsky Mass; Wild About Eubie - Joan Morris and William Bolcom in Music of Eubie Blake; Drake's Village Brass Band...U S Air Force Concert Band and Singing Sergeants  - Fire Dance
Tue
11
Alwyn: Autumn Legend; Kruger: Appalachian Concerto; Bruckner: Symphony #8 in c; Benda: Viola Concerto in F
Wed
12
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 3; Johann Richter: Antiphons; Robert Schumann: Violin Concerto; Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1; Lorenzo Zavateri: Concerto No. 6
Thu
13
New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library.
Fri
14
In memory of Leonard Bernstein
Sun
16
Cherubini: Lodoiska
Mon
17
Sibelius, Original Versions of the Symphony #5 and En Saga; Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet; Albright Plays Albright (Rags of William Albright) Drake's Village Brass Band... Broiles: Crome Templates; Bernstein: On the Water Front
Tue
18
Alfvén: Symphony #3 in E, Op. 23; Gebel: String Quartet in D; Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto #2 in g, Op. 22; Mouton: Missa Dictes moy toutes voz pensées
Wed
19
Wallingford Riegger: Symphony No. 3; Verdi: Choruses from Il Trovatore; Ignaz Pleyel: String Quartet; Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarasthustra;
Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Christmas Eve
Thu
20
Telemann: Concerto in D for 2 Horns; Marsh: Conversation Symphony for Two Orchestras in E Flat; Haydn: Piano Trio #19 in G; Huber: Serenade #1 in E flat Op. 86; Albright: Sweet Sixteenths; Ives: Orchestral Set #1 'Three Places in New England', Sonata for Violin and Piano #2; Pla: Flute Concerto in G; Guastavino: Guitar Sonata #3; Bach: Keyboard Concerto in E BWV 1053; Medtner: Sonata Romantica in b flat Op. 53 #1.
Fri
21
Music of Marga Richter
Sun
23
Schubert: Alfonso und Estrella
Mon
24
Celebrating Charles Ives 142nd Birthday with Three Classic Albums - Gregg Smith conducts Music for Chorus; Gregg Smith conducts New Music of Charles Ives; Morton Gould and the Chicago Symphony - Ives: Orchestra Set #2; Ragtime Dances Drake's Village Brass Band...Glen Adsit and the Hartt Wind Ensemble - Raw Earth
Tue
25
Telemann: Overture-Suite in D major TWV 55:D12; Hindemith: Selections from recent CDs; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; J. S. Bach: Cantata (appropriate to the calendar); Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major, K. 449 (1784); Reger: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, Op. 146
Wed
26
Johann Stamitz: Symphony in F Major; Puccini: Choruses from Tosca; Antonin Reichenauer: Concerto for Oboe and Bassoon; Jan Sweelinck: Toccatas; Andre Previn: Trios for Piano, Oboe and Bassoon; Giovanni Battista Tibaldi: Trio Sonata No. 10
Thu
27
Schubert/Liszt: Auf Dem Wasser Au Singen; Albinoni: Concerto for 2 Oboes in F Op. 9 #3; Meder: Symphony Op. 4 #1; Paganini: Sonata Concertata in A Op. 61, Violin Concerto #2 in b Op. 7 "La Campanella"; Praetorius/Caroubel: Terpsichore Dances; Nancarrow: Study for Player Piano #6; Vivaldi: Trio in C for Violin, Lute and Basso continuo RV 82; Argento: 6 Elizabethan Songs - Diaphenia; Hamerik: Symphony #6 in G for Strings Op. 38 "Spirituelle"; Pierne: Fifteen Pieces Op. 3 #1-5; Gorecki: Totus Tuus; Gliere: The Zaporozhy Cossacks Op. 64.
Fri
28
Music for Halloween
Sun
30
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame, The Queen of Spades
Mon
31
Music for Halloween
 


Thursday Evening Classics
 
 
 
  Library
 
Thursday Evening Classics 
Composer Birthdays 
for September and October 2016
 
September 1
1653 Johann Pachelbel
1854 Engelbert Humperdinck
1886 Othmar Schoeck
1906 Franz Xaver Biebl
 
September 8
1698 Francois Francoeur
1841 Antonin Dvorak
1934 Peter Maxwell Davies
 
Antonin Dvorak
Birth: September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Czech Republic
Death: May 1, 1904 in Prague, Czech Republic
Dvorák's father was a butcher and amateur zither player. Antonin showed early talent as a violinist. At 14 he was sent to relatives in Zlonice to learn German and while there he was taught viola, organ, piano, and counterpoint. From 1857-1859 he attended the Organ School in Prague. He worked variously as a café violist and church organist during the 1860s and 1870s and went on to become viola player in the Prague National Theater Orchestra. At this time he composed several works which he later destroyed or withdrew, the most significant being a song cycle Cypress Trees from which he drew themes in later years. The cycle was a tale of unrequited love, the result of Dvořák's disappointment that a girl he adored married someone else. He later married her sister. His first opera, Alfred, was influenced by the music of Wagner. Three years later he had his first major success with a cantata, Hymnus, which enabled him to give up his orchestra playing. In 1874, his Symphony in E won him an Austrian national prize. Two years later the Moravian duets won him the same prize. He befriended Brahms, who gained for Dvorák a contract with the publisher, Simrock, in 1877. The partnership proved a profitable one despite an initial controversy that flared when Dvorák insisted on including Czech-language work titles on the printed covers, a novelty in those musically German-dominated times. The nationalist element in such works as the Slavonic Rhapsodies and Slavonic Dances earned Dvořák increasing recognition and requests for new works. In 1884 he paid the first of 9 visits to England to conduct his Stabat Mater, which had scored a tremendous success the previous year. His popularity in Britain was immediate and sustained, both as composer and conductor, and he was financially successful enough to be able to buy an estate in South Bohemia. Several of his works were written for or first performed in England, including his Symphonies #7 and #8 and the Requiem. Cambridge made him Honorary Doctor of Music in 1891 and in the same year he was appointed professor of composition at the Prague Conservatory. The Conservatory granted him leave to accept the invitation of Mrs. Jeanette Thurber to become director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He was uneasy with American high society and retreated to the predominantly Czech village of Spillville, Iowa for summer vacations during his stay. He remained in America for 3 years, a fruitful period in which he wrote some of his finest works, including the 'New World' Symphony, the Cello Concerto, the Biblical Songs, the String Quartet Op.96 'American', and the String Quintet. He returned to his teaching post in Prague in 1895, becoming director of the Prague Conservatory in 1901. His pupils included his future son-in-law Josef Suk, and Viteslaw Novák. In his last years he devoted his creative energies to symphonic poems and to operas. Dvořák composed for all the major forms - orchestral, chamber, instrumental, vocal, choral, and operatic. His music is a result of the major influences on his art: Wagner, Brahms, and indigenous folk music. The nationalist feeling in his music - his use of Czech dances and songs, such as the furiant, polka, skočná, dumka, and sousedská - is wonderfully integrated into classical structures.
 
September 15
1811 Jan Nepomuk Skroup
1858 Jeno Hubay
1863 Horatio William Parker
1890 Frank Martin
1913 Henry Dreyfus Brant
1917 Richard Arnell
 
September 22
1720 Adolph Carl Kunzen
1733 Anton Filtz (Fils)
1875 Mikolajus Ciurlionis
1933 Leonardo Balada
1961 Michael Torke
 
September 29
1674 Jacques-Martin Hotteterre
 
October 6
1882 Karol Szymanowski
 
Karol Szymanowski
Birth: October 6, 1882 in Tymoszówska, Ukraine
Death: March 28, 1937 in Lausanne, Switzerland
Szymanowski grew up in the Ukraine, where many affluent Polish families still owned land at the time. He received his musical education initially from his father and later at Gustav Neuhaus' music school in Elisavetgrad. In 1901 he moved to Warsaw, where he had private lessons in harmony with Marek Zawirski, and in counterpoint and composition with the eminent but conservative composer Zygmunt Noskowski. Later, Szymanowski lived for a time in Berlin, helping to found that city's "Young Poland in Music" Society. During the Warsaw and Berlin years Szymanowski began absorbing the musical language of the later German masters (Richard Strauss in particular), under whose strong influence Szymanowski produced his first two symphonies. In 1914 Szymanowski visited Paris, Sicily and North Africa, and the journey renewed and intensified his interest in the French Impressionist school and in Mediterranean and Arab cultures.  These pre-war years saw the creation of his great piano cycles Metopes and Masks, of the Myths for violin and piano, of the song cycles Songs of a Fairy Princess, Songs of an Infatuated Muezzin, and Four Tagore Songs, and of the First Violin Concerto and Third Symphony, 'Song of the Night', for tenor, chorus, and orchestra. Together these two orchestral works represent the high-water mark of Szymanowski's 'impressionism', a style that blends the refined sonorities of Debussy, Ravel, and Scriabin and the impassioned late Romanticism of the New German School. Szymanowski's name as a composer was spreading throughout Europe.  Among those who championed his music were his compatriots, pianist Arthur Rubinstein and violinist Paul Kochansky.  The October Revolution interrupted that progress. The Szymanowski family had moved to Elisavetgrad just before the revolution, and shortly after their move the family home at Tymoszówka was all but destroyed. Elisavetgrad, however, was soon subject to Austrian occupation, and, in late 1919, after selling all the family land at a heavy loss, Szymanowski left for Warsaw. It was not until the song cycle Słopiewnie, written in summer 1921, that he was able to compose again. A new nationalist orientation was beginning to take shape, and it was given expression in such works as the Mazurkas op. 50 and the ballet Harnasie, both based on the exotic folk music of the southern Tatra highlands. By the mid-1920s Szymanowski was enjoying increasing international recognition. His great opera King Roger, which he had struggled to write during the war, was finally completed in 1924. He was a prominent figure in local musical life too, becoming director of the Warsaw Conservatory in 1927 and rector of the State Academy of Music in 1930. But ill health forced him to resign from the Conservatory and he was later dismissed from the academy, largely for political reasons. During the next two years he managed to write his Bartókian Symphonie concertante for piano and orchestra and Second Violin Concerto.  But from 1934 onwards he was unable to produce much of substance. Faced with alarming financial problems and rapidly deteriorating health, he was obliged to undertake exhausting concert tours throughout Europe. His declining condition forced him to enter a sanatorium, and he died of tuberculosis in Lugano, Switzerland in 1937.
 
October 13
1842 Antonino Pasculli
1864 Alexander Grechaninov
 
October 20
1874 Charles Ives
1944 William Albright
 
Charles Ives
Birth: October 20, 1874 in Danbury, CT
Death: May 19, 1954 in West Redding, CT
Charles was the son of George Ives, a bandmaster and a musical experimenter who taught his son the rudiments of music but also encouraged him to be open-minded and independent. Charles' musical skills quickly developed. He was playing organ services at the local Presbyterian church from the age of 12 and began to compose at 13. In 1894, Ives entered Yale to study music, and his father died at age 40 from a heart attack. At Yale, Ives experimental tendencies were met with disapproval from professor Horatio T. Parker. Ives first mature compositions adhered to conventional structures and included his First Quartet, and First Symphony, which served as his thesis. After barely managing to earn his diploma, Ives moved with a couple of his fraternity buddies to an apartment in New York City. He became organist at Central Presbyterian Church and composed his first large-scale attempt to reflect the spirit of America, the Symphony #2. In off hours, Ives worked on his unconventional, highly dissonant and ragtime-influenced Piano Sonata #1. In 1902, a friend introduced Ives to the insurance agent Julian Myrick. They co-founded the first Mutual Life Insurance office in Manhattan. Through his hard work and easy ability to communicate with customers, Ives would become a very wealthy insurance executive. In 1906, he married Harmony Twichell, a woman from a prominent New England family. Ives continued to compose his music on commuter trains, in the evening, and on weekends, writing what pleased him without worrying what the outside world might think of it. In order to check details of orchestration, Ives hired out theater orchestras to rehearse his scores. In the following decade, Ives would produce several of his most important masterworks, the Symphony #4, the Orchestral Set #1: "Three Places in New England," the String Quartet #2, and the massive Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass., 1840-1860," commonly referred to as the Concord Sonata. With the beginning of America's involvement in World War I, Ives raised funds for the war effort, supported an unsuccessful constitutional amendment prohibiting a declaration of war without the support of two-thirds of the populace, published a manual (Surveying the Prospect) that for years served as a bible for the insurance industry, and composed at an astounding pace. In October 1918, Ives suffered a severe heart attack that nearly killed him. In 1921 he published the Concord Sonata and in 1922 followed it with 114 Songs, containing songs dating from 1888 to the eve of publication. Many of Ives's subsequent innovations were carried out in his songs, which are of an astonishing variety. They range from imitations of German lieder, to powerful, virtually atonal declamations, from serene hymn-tune pieces to boyishly humorous ones, from strident epigrams to homely numbers. Often these songs were derived from chamber or orchestral pieces, or else they were later arranged for different forces. In the 1930s the sonata was taken up by John Kirkpatrick and Three Places in New England by Nicolas Slonimsky, but most of Ives's scores remained unheard until after World War II. In 1930, Ives and Myrick both decided to retire, and from this time forward Ives concerned himself with revising existing works. In 1947, Ives was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his Symphony #3, completed nearly 40 years earlier. With Ives' death in May 1954 his musical legacy became top priority for a generation of biographers, researchers, and performers.
Ives music was influenced by his father's individualism, New England transcendentalism, and his belief in democratic ideals. It was rooted in the parlor musicales, the outdoor sing-songs, the marching bands, the hymns sung in church, and other impressions of his boyhood. Ives' early works expertly channel European influences into totally fresh constructs; mature works make use of quotation, simultaneous clashing metres, quarter-tones, the use of spatially separated groups of instruments, collage techniques, homegrown forms of pitch organization and dense, massed blocks of clustered chords.
 
October 27
1782 Niccolo Paganini
1912 Conlon Nancarrow
1927 Dominik Argento
 
Niccolo Paganini
Birth: October 27, 1782 in Genoa, Italy
Death: May 27, 1840 in Nice, France
The most famous violinist of his time, Paganini was taught initially by his father, a devoted amateur musician. Niccolò also took composition lessons in Genoa. His rapid progress on the violin, however, was such that his father was soon compelled to send him to Giacomo Costa, maestro di capella of the Cathedral at San Lorenzo, for further study. Niccolò was soon giving public concerts, and when he went to study in Parma in 1794, the famous violinist Alessandro Rolla said he could teach him nothing. He did, however, study composition in Parma, with Paër, writing numerous instrumental works. He performed little during the initial years of the 19th century, instead devoting his time to composition. In 1800 he went with his family to Livorno. A year later he settled in Lucca, as leader of a newly formed orchestra, and two years after that was appointed violinist to the court there. In December 1809 he left to pursue a solo career. For the next 18 years Paganini gave concerts throughout Italy, his triumphant success in Milan in 1813 establishing his position as the foremost virtuoso of his generation. He also conducted frequently and composed a series of works for violin, almost all of which were designed to display his prodigious technical skills. In 1828 he travelled to Vienna for a series of wildly successful concerts, thus launching a considerable European career, taking him to almost all the major cities. Although there were instances of quite serious critical opinion, he had particular success in Germany and in Paris and London. His astonishing technical prowess amazed audiences of the day, and many colorful legends arose to explain his remarkable abilities. One of the more popular presumed that he was in league with the Devil, a theory supported by his cadaverous physique. In 1832 he commissioned a work for viola from Berlioz, who eventually produced Harold en Italie. Disappointed with its lack of virtuoso display, Paganini never performed it. Paganini's last years were troubled by ill health.  In 1838 he lost his voice completely, a harbinger of the throat cancer that would later claim his life. Although he withdrew from public performance, he remained in a variety of ventures. In Parma he became director of the Teatro Ducale, making many wide-ranging, but ultimately futile proposals for orchestral reform. Paganini died in Nice, leaving no fewer than 11 Stradivari instruments in his estate. Paganini had an enormous influence on subsequent generations of violinists, partly through his technical example but also through his compositions, particularly the famous Caprices for solo violin, which remain a virtuoso pinnacle. He set an entirely new standard of virtuosity. Many of the most demanding techniques of the present-day violinist are associated primarily with him, including 'ricochet' bowing, left-hand pizzicato, and double-stop harmonics. But just as important was his impact on a whole generation of composers who attempted to emulate the Caprices. After first hearing him play in Paris in 1832, Liszt set out to duplicate Paganini's achievements on the piano. Paganini's own violin concertos are written in the Italian operatic style of the day, alternating between lyric charm and ferocious technical display, and are the only works of his which remain in the repertory.
 
 
 Sunday Afternoon at the Opera 
 
  

SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
Your "Lyric Theater" Program
with Keith Brown
Programming Selections for the 
Months of Sept/Oct, 2016


SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 4TH - Blitzstein,The Cradle Will Rock, No For An Answer, The Airborne Symphony A "labor opera" is what is called for on this Sunday of the Labor Day holiday weekend. The quintessential one is Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock (1938). Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1943) is usually credited with being the first musical to have its own original cast recording. To be historically correct, however, it was actually The Cradle Will Rockthat first got the treatment. Blitzstein called his dark musical a 'play with music." He wrote both book and lyrics for it, as well as the music. Cradle looks at the plight of common American laboring folk in hard times. As a play, much of Cradle is keenly satirical. Some of it is pure agitprop. Because of his long association with the political Left in the United States Marc Blitzstein (1905-64) was a notorious figure. His hot potato of a musical almost didn't come off in its premiere Broadway production. Yet The Cradle Will Rock did not completely disappear from the annals of American musical theater. It was revived at Theater Four in New York City in 1964. Blitzstein's friend Leonard Bernstein was musical consultant for the revival and its subsequent recording, which I broadcast in its CRI compact disc reissue on the Labor Day Sunday of 1990. This Sunday I invite you to give ear to the original cast recording, as it has been digitally reprocessed for release in the Pearl label's series of historically significant recordings of the earlier part of the twentieth century.
     Together with Cradle in the same 1998 Pearl two-CD package are two other of Blitzstein's musical theaterworks. Blitzstein did in fact get his next Broadway show No For An Answer (1940) billed as "An American Opera." It has a less politically provocative story telling of the domestic aspects of the hard life of Greek immigrant laboring people. The original cast recording of excerpts from No For An Answer includes young Leonard Bernstein on piano. A concert work on the monumentally Mahlerian scale is Blitzstein's
The Airborne Symphony (1946). "Cantata" is perhaps a better term for this composition, written in London during Blitzstein's wartime service in the US Air Force. For the symphony's recorded debut after the war Bernstein conducted the New York City Symphony Orchestra. Robert Shaw, then at the start of his choral directing career, directed the RCA Victor Chorale. Shaw also served as narrator for the piece, alongside two singer soloists (tenor and baritone). I last gave this three-part Blitzstein presentation on the Labor Day Sunday of the year 2000.
 
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH - Puccini, Edgar
You're wrong if you think all of Giacomo Puccini's operasare in the international standard operatic repertoire. Even after Puccini made major revisions in the score over a period of fifteen years, Edgar(1889), his second operatic essay, never made it into the canon of his works. Its premiere at La Scala was a failure, due no doubt to a preposterous libretto. Yet the music audibly displays the melodic genius of this composer in its earliest flowering. In radio broadcast you can forget about the romantic absurdities of the plot and concentrate on some glorious singing. Edgar has had its supporters, one of whom is discerning music critic Raymond Tuttle. There were at least four commercial recordings of Edgar made over a period of several decades up to the end of the twentieth century. One rare revival of Edgar took place in a concert performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was the world premiere of the complete opera on stereo LP discs, made in 1977 for Columbia Masterworks. Comparing the singing casts of three live-in-performance recordings and one single studio taping, Raymond Tuttle concludes that the oldest one from Carnegie Hall is the best. Operatic superstars tenor Carlo Bergonzi and soprano Renata Scotto "...squeeze the last drops of juice out of the score..." (Fanfare magazine, Jan/Feb, 2007). Eve Queler directed the Opera Orchestra of New York. I last broadcast the Columbia Masterworks Edgar on Sunday, September 9, 2007, and before that on Sunday, May 22, 1988. I will spin those same old vinyl platters again today.
 
 
SUNDAYSEPTEMBER18TH - Janacek,The Makropulos Case This opera by Leos Janacek (1854-1928) is a cautionary tale for those who think it would be wonderful to live forever. Its plot concerns a legal dispute over a rich man's will. Only one of the contestants for the estate, a glamorous singing star, knows the secret contained in the baron's documents. Vec Makropulos (1926) was the eighth in a series of psychologically piercing music dramas to spring from the brain of this passionately nationalistic Czech composer from Moravia. Supraphon, the old Czechoslovak state record label, recorded The Makropulos Case in its studios in Prague in 1966 with  a cast of native Czech singers who are part of the Prague National Theatre ensemble, directed by Bohumil Gregor. I last broadcast The Makropulos Case way back on Sunday, February 1, 1987. I present it again today on the same Supraphon stereo LP's.
 
 
SUNDAYSEPTEMBER 25TH - Handel, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il ModeratoAmong Handel's English oratorios, the one with the Italian title l'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740) remains my personal favorite. It is a secular, not a Biblical oratorio, and it could also be classified as an "ode," like some similar works by Purcell. I have broadcast it three times before, employing three different recordings. This pastoral ode in three parts was written immediately before the immortal Messiah. The ode reaches that same level of the composer's genius. I think it has been underrepresented in the Handel discography. Handel set the first two parts of the ode to Milton's poetry. The third, concluding part Il Moderato is a setting of other verse that isn't on the par of John Milton's sublime "mood" poems. It was Charles Jennens' text throughout that Handel worked from in composing his music for Messiah. Jennens' editing of the Miltonian verse of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso and the Biblical text for Messiah remains right on the mark. The Erato CD recording of the ode I broadcast on Sunday, June 26, 1988, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting his own English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir, won highest praise from Fanfare, America's leading magazine for reviews of classical music on disc. Another historically informed recorded interpretation of L'Allegro,etc. was released by the budget label Naxos in 2002. The Naxos recording features the Frankfurt Baroque Orchestra and Junge Kantorei chorale, conducted by Joachim Carlos Martini. The Naxos CD's were aired on Sunday, November 13, 2005. Also favorably reviewed by Fanfare's critic Jerry Dubins is a2015 Signum CD release which purports to recreate Handel's own performances of 1740. In my broadcasts I have long been in the habit of playing additional recordings of one or  another of Handel's concertos for organ, or his Concerti Grossi  or the Concerti a due Cori in the intervals (that is the intermissions) between the parts of the oratorios. Such was the practice in Handel's lifetime. The Signum release includes two of the Concerti Grossi Opus 6. One of them is placed up front by way of an overture to the ode- something Handel may or may not have intended. The other is an intermission piece. One of the Opus 7 organ concertos is also inserted into the proceedings. William Whitehead plays organ and carillon. Paul McCreesh directs the period instrument players who accompany the Gabrieli Consort, the baroque choral specialty group that he founded. andel'dH
 
SUNDAY OCTOBER 2ND - Mozart/LichtenthalIl Ratto dal SeraglioGet ready to audition what for you lovers of Mozart's music may be the strangest Mozart opera you've never heard! After his untimely death the master's operas were doctored quite a bit in adaptation to later operatic stage requirements. Die Zauberflote was first presented in Paris in 1801 in French language as Les Mysteres d'Isis and was quite popular. For Parisian staging Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith largely recomposed  "The Magic Flute," making it over into a new yet vaguely familiar Egyptian opera, with numbers taken from other Mozart operas. Earlier this year on Sunday, May 22nd I broadcast what I presume is the world premiere recording for the Spanish Glossa label of the Mozart/Lachnith "Mysteries of Isis." Diego Fasolis lead the period instrumentalists of Le Concert Spirituel and the Chorus of Flemish Radio. This Sunday I offer for your audio consideration another makeover of a Mozart opera. This time it's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" in Italian language adaptation as Il Ratto dal Serraglio. Mozart's eldest son Carl Thomas wanted to have all his father's mature operas produced at La Scala. The ones with librettos by Da Ponte were indeed staged in Milan between 1807 and 1818, along with La Clemenza di Tito and an Italian language adaptation of "The Magic Flute" renamed Il Flauto Magico. Producer Carl Thomas Mozart collaborated with the musical arranger Peter Lichtenthal (1780-1853), who doctored all the Mozart scores for the Milanese stagings. Two decades later Lichtenthal went on to radically rewrite Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. He composed entirely new Italian recitatives to replace the spoken Singspiel dialog. Il Ratto dal Serraglio could be termed a pastiche.Lichtenthal cut certain numbers from the Singspiel and replaced them with arias from other works in the Mozart operatic canon. He inserted music not by Mozart. The "Abduction" storyline and characters remained the same, however. Lichtenthal's pastiche was ready to go into rehearsal in 1838 when its La Scala production was suddenly cancelled. It had to wait for its stage premiere until 2012, which came not in Milan but in Vicenza at the Teatro Olimpico. Giovanni Battista Rigon directed the orchestra of that theater and the chorus of I Polifonici Vicentini. In 2015 the world premiere recording of Il Ratto dal Serraglio came out on two compact discs through the Italian Bongiovanni label.
 
SUNDAYOCTOBER 9TH - Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part One  The recorded plays of William Shakespeare have long figured into the mix of my lyric theater programming. Since this year marks the four hundredth anniversary of the death of the Bard, I feel obligated to include at least one of his plays in the 2016 lyric theater lineup. The history play Henry IV, Part One (1598) was previously heard on this program on Sunday, December 7, 2003. It was originally broadcast in studio production over the BBC World Service on February 13, 1999. (BBC broadcast its first full length Shakespeare play in 1923.) The audio presentation was directed by Gordon House and stars the father-and-son acting teamof Julian Glover as King Henry, opposite son Jamie as Prince Hal. Also starring as Falstaff is Tim West. Henry IV, Part One was issued on two compact discs in the BBC Radio Collection.
 
SUNDAY OCTOBER 16TH - Cherubini, Lodoiska  In his works for the opera houses of Paris Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) built upon the "reformed" classical style of opera established by his predecessor there, Christoph Willibald Gluck. Cherubini's lyr5ic tragedy Medea (1797), heard on this program in LP format long ago on Sunday, February 3, 1985, is a masterpiece of dramatic concentration in an austere symphonic musical framework. Brilliantly successful in its own day was his Lodoiska (1791), a French opera comique with spoken word dialog and sung numbers almost as intense as Medea.Lodioiska is actually a heroic "rescue opera," one of the forerunners of Beethoven's Fidelio. In time this revolutionary piece de sauvetage fell out of the repertoire, but it forever changed the course of French operatic history. Nineteenth century composers like Rossini and Spontini were greatly indebted to it. Lodoiska was revived for the first time in the twentieth century at Milan's Teatro alla Scala in 1951 in Italian language translation and with a badly adapted musical score. When it was next staged there in 1991 conductor Riccardo Muti drew upon a new score based on the two oldest and most reliable printed editions. Lodoiska was recorded at La Scala live in performance in February, 1991 for release stateside on two Sony Classical CD's. Muti leads the La Scala chorus and orchestra, with a cast of vocal notables including tenor Alessandro Corbelli. Sung in French employing the original libretto. I have aired Lodoiska twice before, first on May 3, 1992 and then on Sunday, February 26, 2006. I make use of the same Sony CD release a third time today.
 
 
SUNDAY OCTOBER 23RD - Schubert, Alfonso und Estrella  At various points in the course of his brief artistic career Franz Schubert attempted to make a name for himself as an opera composer. Besides the well known incidental music for Rosamunde (1823), Schubert composed at least nine complete operas, three more in substantial fragments and three more in rough sketch. Some were indeed performed, but none with much success. The most grand of these theatrical projects was Fierrabras (1823), a heroic-romantic opera in German language heard on this program in its world premiere recording for Deutsche Grammophon on Sunday, March 29,1992. Also grand in design was the predecessor of Fierrabras, composed in 1821: Alfonso und Estrella. Neither of these two operas saw the stage in Schubert's lifetime. Alfonso und Estrella got at least as far as being considered for staging in Vienna, Berlin and  Graz within a year of two of its composition. Alfonso und Estrella was recorded musically complete for EMI in 1978. EMI released it for the very first time on LP's. It was picked up by the German label Berlin Classics and reissued on compact disc in 1994. The cast in this studio recording could not be bettered. All of the big names in German singing in the 1970's took part: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Edith Mathis, Hermann Prey, Theo Adam,Eberhard Buchner. Otmar Suitner conducted the orchestra of the  Staatskapelle Berlin and the chorus of Radio Berlin. As for the music of Alfonso und Estrella, it is as  melodically beautiful as any of Schubert's lieder, and as dramatic in its orchestral scoring as any of his symphonies. Those Berlin Classics silver discs I first broadcast on Sunday, May 11,1997.You hear them a second time today.
 
 
SUNDAY OCTOBER 30TH - Tchaikovsky, Pique Dame/The Queen of SpadesPique Dame is the name the Germans give to the opera called in English The Queen of Spades (1890), the next-to-last of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ten operas. When they first saw it staged the music critics of St. Petersburg and Moscow thought the opera was boring, but they have long since been overruled. How they could have arrived at that opinion is hard to understand, since there is no lack of passion in either Tchaikovsky's music or the libretto he and his brother Modest worked up from Pushkin's novella. In Tchaikovsly's operatic version of the story the young military man Herman is not simply a cold-hearted, monomaniacal cardshark. There is also an element of the ghost story in The Queen of Spades,ie. the dead countess, and that lends this opera its Halloweentide application for broadcast today. I last presented Pique Dame on Sunday, April 7,1991, in a centennial production by the Bulgarian State Opera, as recorded for release on Sony Classical CD's. The opera has been recorded again in 2014 for the German BR Klassik label, the proprietary label of Bavarian Radio. Mariss Jansons conducts the radio chorus and radio symphony orchestra. Tenor Mischa Didyk portrays Herman in the concert hall recording. His intense interpretation of the role received high marks from record critic Daniel Morrison, writing for Fanfare magazine (May/June, 2016 issue). Citing splendid work by chorus, orchestra and most of the supporting cast, plus excellent sound quality, Morrison says that overall "the new Bavarian Radio release deserves a place among the recommended recordings of this great opera."
     My record collector colleague Rob Meehan has once again loaned to me for broadcast his recordings of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, No For An Answer and The Airborne Symphony. Rob is a former classics deejay at WWUH and a specialist in the alternative classical music of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. From our station's extensive holdings of opera on LP's come Puccini's Edgar and Janacek's The Makropulos Case. The BR Klassik compact disc release of Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame is a recent addition to our classical music record library. Everything else that is featured in this two-month round of programming comes out of my own collection of opera and oratorio on silver disc. Thanks to WWUH's operations director Kevin O'Toole 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 
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two weeks after their air date.
  
 
Enjoy the music, even when you can't listen "live"!
West Hartford Symphony Orchestra

For tickets and information, 860-521-4362 or http://whso.org/.

 The Connecticut Valley Symphony Orchestra
The Connecticut Valley Symphony Orchestra is a non-profit Community Orchestra. They present four concerts each season in the Greater Hartford area, performing works from all periods in a wide range of musical styles. The members of Hartford's only community orchestra are serious amateurs who come from a broad spectrum of occupations.

 
For further information: http://ctvalleysymphonyorch.com/


The Musical Club of Hartford
 
  
The Musical Club of Hartford is a non-profit organization founded over a hundred years ago, in 1891. Membership is open to performers or to those who simply enjoy classical music, providing a network for musicians from the Greater Hartford area.
 
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 The Hartford Chorale
  
 
The Hartford Chorale is a volunteer-based, not-for-profit organization, and serves as the primary symphonic chorus for the greater Hartford community. The Chorale provides experienced, talented singers with the opportunity to study and perform at a professional level of musicianship. Through its concerts and collaborations with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and other organizations, the Chorale seeks to reach and inspire the widest possible audience with exceptional performances of a broad range of choral literature, including renowned choral masterpieces.
 
 
For further information: Hartford Chorale 860-547-1982 or www.hartfordchorale.org .

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