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WWUH Classical Programming
March 2024
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… Tuesdays 7:00-8:00 pm
(Opera Highlights Below)
Friday 1st
Orchestral Tour – String Them Up
Sunday 3d
Mendelssohn, Elijah
Monday 4th
Host's Choice
Tuesday 5th
Birth of Rhapsody in Blue Feb 12, 1924 – Recreation of Paul Whiteman’s Experiment in Modern Music Concert; M. l. Williams: Zodiac Suite; Drake’s Village Brass Band Onxy Noir – Jazz Works for Brass Quintet – Onyx Brass
Wednesday 6th
Jean-Philippe Rameau: Naïs (orchestral suite); Michel de la Barre: Premier livre de pièces pour la flûte traversière, avec la basse continue, Suite No. 1 in D major; Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa: Sacrarum cantionum liber primus (selections); Dario Castello: Sonata Decima Terza à 4, from Sonate concertate in stil moderno, libro secondo;
Emilio de' Cavalieri: Lamentationes et responsoriae (selections);
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Symphonie Concertante in G major, Op. 13; Joseph Haydn: Keyboard Sonata No. 60 in C major, Hob.XVI:50; Henri Brod: Elégie sur la mort d'un objet chéri, Op. 10;
Hyacinthe Jadin: Nocturne No. 1 in A minor; Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter: Sonata di Bravura, Op. 13 in E-flat major; Eduard Künneke: Piano Concerto No. 1 in A-flat major, Op. 36.
Thursday 7th
Vitali: Chaconne in g minor; Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye (Mother Goose); Eller: Twilight; Wilbye: Madrigals; Castro: Tangos; Bortkiewicz: Violin Sonata in g minor, Op. 26.
Friday 8th
Orchestral Tour – It’s Brass, Not Gold!
Sunday 10th
Handel, Joshua
Monday 11th
Host's Choice
Tuesday 12th
Debussy: Estampes, Children’s Corner; Schoenberg: Gurre-Lieder
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Music of Warren Benson, Volume 1 – United States Marine Band
Wednesday 13th
Luigi Cherubini: Eliza, ou Le voyage aux glaciers du Mont St. Bernard: Overture; Cipriani Potter: Introduction and Rondo, "Alla militaire” for Piano and Orchestra; Franz Schubert: Der Teufel als Hydraulicus, D. 4: Overture; Ferdinand Ries: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 23; Carl Maria von Weber: Oberon, J. 306, Act II: Recitative and Aria: Ocean! Thou mighty monster; Arnold Bax: Viola Sonata; Claude Debussy: 2 Danses, "Danses sacree et profane" (version for harp and solo strings); Arthur Foote: Suite in E Major, Op. 63; Gaetano Donizetti: Marino Faliero (Scena): Act II: Notte d'orrore!; Franz Liszt: Verdi - Aida: Danza sacra e duetto final, S436/R269; Giovanni Salviucci: 6 Pezzi (Pieces) for Violin and Piano; Florence Price: Songs to the Dark Virgin; Margaret Bonds: 3 Dream Portraits; Benjamin Godard: Scènes écossaises, Op. 138 for Oboe and Piano: I. Legende pastorale; Sigismond Thalberg: Grande Fantaisie sur le barbiere de Seville, Op. 63; Pietro Mascagni: Le Maschere: Sinfonia; Nino Rota: Cello Concerto No. 1; Benjamin Britten: Matinees musicales, Op. 24 (Based on the Music of Rossini); Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari: La dama boba: Overture
Thursday 14th
Telemann: Concerto TWV 53:E1 in E Major for flute, oboe d'amore, viola d'amore; Overture (Suite) TWV 55:C6 in C major for 3 oboes, strings; Strauss, Sr.: Kettenbrücke-Waltzes, Op. 4, Radetzky March, Op. 228; Goldberg: Trio Sonata in C Major; Stepan: Piano Concerto in B-Flat Major; Lang: Lieder; Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988.
Friday 15th
Orchestral Tour – Walk in the Woods
Sunday 17th
Charpentier, David e Jonathas
Monday 18th
Host's Choice
Tuesday 19th
Starer: Violin Concerto; Lees: String Quartet #1; Dodgson: Guitar Concerto; Glass: Metamorphosis 1-5; Holst: Choral Fantasia; Harrison: Symphony #2 “Elegiac”
Drake’s Village Brass BandJörgen van Rijen Trombone, Alma Quartet – Mirrored In Time
Wednesday 20th
Host's Choice
Thursday 21st
Law: Bunker Hill; Bach: Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major BWV 1068, Toccata & Fugue in d minor BWV 565, Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major BWV1050, Jesu bleibet meine Freude; Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Skoryk: Violin Sonata No. 2.
Friday 22d
Spring has sprung … and Birthday celebrations
Sunday 24th
Beethoven, Christus am Olberge, Martin, Golgotha, Lobo, Missa Prudentes Virgines
Monday 25th
Host's Choice
Tuesday 26th
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms; Honneger: Symphony #1; Sibelius: Symphony #7; Ives: Song Project 114 Songs Volume 3
Drake’s Village Brass Band Capt. Kenneth Collins, United States Navy Band – Gazebo Dances
Wednesday 27th
Georg Philipp Telemann: Jesus liegt in letzten Zügen, TWV 1:983;
Orlande de Lassus: Feria Quinta in Cena Domini à 4 (6 responsories for Maundy Thursday); Johann Sebastian Bach: Passion according to St. Matthew, BWV 244 (complete); Gennaro Manna: Lezzione Terza del Venerdi Santo.
Thursday 28th
André: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 32, No. 1; Weigl: Songs; Harris: Anthems; Avshalomov: The Summer Days; Anchorage Aloft; Kosenko: Violin Sonata in a minor, Op. 18.
Friday 29th
Orchestral Tour – They Take a Beating, But They Keep on Ticking
Sunday 31st
Telemann, Die Auferstehung, C.P.E. Bach, Die Auferstehung
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SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "lyric theater" program
with Keith Brown
Programming for the month of March 2024
SUNDAY MARCH 3RD Mendelssohn, Elijah As this month begins, lyric theater programming continues in Lenten mode, focusing on religious choral music within the Judeo-Christian tradition. On the Third Sunday of Lent I turn to that war horse of the oratorio repertoire, Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah (1846). The English had cultivated the art of choral singing since the Middle Ages. They took to the musical artform of oratorio with a passion. Along with Handel's great works in that line the English enshrined Mendelssohn's Elijah, which was written for performance at the Birmingham Festival of choral music in 1846. Victorian audiences were in raptures over it and it immediately entered the repertoire. (Actually, Mendelssohn first conceived it as far back as 1836 in German language.) Way back on Sunday, April 19, 1987 I presented Elijah on EMI/Angel LP's, as recorded at Kingsway Hall, London in 1968. Then on Sunday, April 7, 1996 came the Robert Shaw recording made in Symphony Hall, Atlanta in 1994. The famed American choral director led the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (a Telarc CD release). Both recordings featured some of the most distinguished singing voices available in the second half of the twentieth century. The older EMI recording has mezzo Janet Baker, tenor Nicolai Gedda and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos directs the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus and the Wandsworth School Boys' Choir. That vintage 1968 recording was reissued on two compact discs in 1995 through EMI Classics.
SUNDAY MARCH 10TH Handel, Joshua George Frideric Handel often introduced his English language oratorios to the public during Lent. Joshua, for instance, was first performed on March 9, 1748 and was accounted a success. Joshua takes its story from the sixth book of the Old Testament. Thomas Morell's libretto graphically depicts the destruction of Jericho by the Israelites' military hero, providing Handel the opportunity for the tub-thumping, grand and glorious martial music which English audiences loved. The chorus "See the conqu'ring hero comes" became so popular Handel decided to insert it into his Judas Maccabaeus (1747). Joshua was revived again and again to the end of the eighteenth century and occasionally into the nineteenth at least as late as 1839, both in England and on the European continent, but it was forgotten about thereafter. The overwhelming popularity of Judas Maccabaeus seems to have overshadowed it. Hear Joshua in all its glory today as recorded in 1990 with Robert King leading the period instrument King's Consort and the Choir of New College, Oxford. The choir includes boy trebles with the adult choristers. Joshua is tenor John Mark Ainsley. There's a boy treble soloist who takes the part of the Angel. Originally released in the UK by Hyperion in 1991, this recording was licensed for reissue in the US in 1998 through the now defunct Musical Heritage Society. The MHS compact discs I last drew upon for presentation on Sunday, February 10, 2008.
SUNDAY MARCH 17TH Charpentier, David e Jonathas The influence of the Italian immigrant composer Jean Baptiste Lully upon the Royal French Court was so strong that no native French composer in the reign of Louis XIV could get an opera performed before the king. Only after Lully died in 1687 did the field become open again for native talent. Marc Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704) wrote a Lullian-style opera on a Biblical subject for performance at the Jesuit College in Paris, where he was musical director. This was David e Jonathas (1688), which was intended as a special Lenten entertainment. It is the only surviving example of a "sacred lyric tragedy" from the era of the Sun King. The one existing copy of the score of David e Jonathas is corrupt, with a lot of transcription mistakes and actual gaps running into many bars of music. Michel Corboz, a pioneer in the authentic recreation of baroque music, painstakingly reconstructed the complete score for a staged revival by Opera de Lyon in 1981. Corboz conducts the English Bach Festival Baroque Orchestra and singing cast, as recorded for the French Erato record label. David e Jonathas I have featured twice before at Lent: on Sunday, March 14, 1993 and again on the 13th of March, 2011.
SUNDAY MARCH 24TH Beethoven, Christus am Olberge, Martin, Golgotha, Lobo, Missa Prudentes Virgines We all think of Ludwig van Beethoven as a symphonist, but in addition to his one-and-only opera Fidelio, he wrote one sacred oratorio, Christus am Olberge ("Christ on the Mount of Olives," 1803), composed immediately before the monumental "Eroica" symphony number three. Beethoven concerned himself only with that brief portion of the Passion narrative that takes place in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper. There Jesus endured emotional suffering, restrained his disciple Peter from an act of violence and peacefully submitted to arrest. Franz Huber's libretto ends with Jesus now wholly committed to complete his act of Redemption. The oratorio closes with a hallelujah chorus of angels worthy of Handel. Christus am Olberge, one of Beethoven's most overlooked masterpieces, received the recorded interpretation it deserves from Kent Nagano and the German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin and Berlin Radio Chorus. Tenor Placido Domingo is heard as Jesus. This German Harmonia Mundi recording of the work won highest praise from reviewer James H. North in the Sept/Oct, 2004 issue of Fanfare magazine. Christus am Olberge was previously broadcast on this program on Sunday, February 20, 2005.
Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974) was inspired to write his Passion oratorio Golgotha (1949) after viewing an exhibition of copperplate engravings by Rembrandt, which included one particularly arresting one of Christ's Crucifixion. Martin put together his own French language libretto for Golgotha, drawing on the Passion narratives of the Evangelists and the writings of the Church Father St. Augustine. There is a 1988 Hannsler Classic release of Golgotha that I broadcast on Sunday, April 1, 2001. This is not a frequently recorded piece of music, so I was surprised the French Harmonia Mundi label came out in 2010 with a new Golgotha, recorded in Talinn, Estonia, the small Baltic state whose people have a long tradition of choral singing. German conductor Daniel Reuss leads the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, augmented by the Dutch choral group Capella Amsterdam and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, with a cast of solo singers hailing from the UK, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands. Fanfare reviewer Henry Fogel says,"...this new Harmonia Mundi release is the best way to get to know this wonderful score." (Fanfare, July/August, 2010.) This is the recording, last broadcast on Sunday, April 10, 2011, that you listeners can get to know again today.
Time remains for you to also get to know the rapturous, mystical polyphonic choral music of Spanish Catholicism in the age of the painter El Greco. Alonso Lobo de Borja (1555-1617) held the important post of chapel master at Toledo Cathedral and later at Seville. His published books of motets and masses were distributed all over the Spanish empire at the height of its power- even as far away as Lima Cathedral in Peru, and churches in Bogota, Columbia and Mexico City. Printed in the Liber Primus Missarum of 1602 is the Missa Prudentes Virgines for five voices: a "parody" mass, referring to the ten virgins and their lamps in Jesus' parable, with musical elements imitated from Lobo's elder colleague Francisco Guerrero. The singers of La Grande Chapelle, under the direction of Albert Recassens, made the world premiere recording of two of Lobo's mass settings (Lauda Records, 2013).
SUNDAY MARCH 31ST Telemann, Die Auferstehung, C. P. E. Bach, Die Auferstehung Thinking about how American consumers have a reputation for bargain hunting, this Easter I'm prepared to offer you listeners a twofer deal: two resurrections for the price of one! That's right, folks: back-to-back oratorios that have a certain locale in common- Hamburg, Germany. Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) was resident composer in the cosmopolitan port city from 1721 until his death. He was music director for the five major churches in town. He long outlived his colleague in Leipzig, Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote only two Passion settings. Telemann wrote at least 27 Passions or Passion oratorios and circa 1700 church cantatas, plus operas (Bach wrote no operas at all) and piles of instrumental music. Telemann's Resurrection oratorio Die Auferstehung (1761) is a work of relatively brief duration dating from the composer's old age. Remarkably progressive, in an advanced late baroque style, you could label this music "pre-classical." The octogenarian master seems to have kept pace with the latest stylistic trends. The German cpo label recording of this mini-oratorio, released in 1999 has got to be its world premiere on disc. Telemann's score gets a beautifully performed, historically informed treatment from the Telemann Chamber Orchestra of Michaelstein and the Chamber Choir of Magdeburg, the composer's home town. Ludger Remy conducts the singers and period instrument players. I last broadcast the Telemann Resurrection oratorio on Easter Sunday, April 23, 2000.
Telemann remained active in his musical post in Hamburg to the very end of his days. The prestigious position was open following his death in 1767 and was taken up by one of Bach's sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714-88), who transferred out of his post in Berlin at the court of Prussian king Frederick The Great. C. P. E. Bach's Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu ("The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus," 1778) is in the early classical "galant" style- more particularly the Empfindsamer Stil, the "sensitive" or "expressive" style this composer in particular cultivated. He considered it one of his finest works, from which, in his own words, "young composers can learn something." This is not a Passion oratorio based on one of the Gospel accounts. The libretto is an imaginative piece of Protestant German religious poetry, suitable for a lengthy dramatic cantata. I first featured C. P. E. Bach's Auferstehung cantata on Easter Sunday, April 11, 1993. I drew upon a 1992 Virgin Classics compact disc release, with baroque specialist Philippe Herreweghe leading the singers of the Collegium Vocale Ghent and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Then along came a Hyperion CD release in 2002 of this same work as interpreted by another baroque specialist conductor of that era, Sigiswald Kuijken directing his La Petite Bande. That second recording went over the air on Easter Sunday, 2004, again falling on April 11th of that year, when it was paired with a Hannsler CD recording of a St. Matthew Passion (1746) byTelemann. This Easter I revert to the Virgin Classics/Herreweghe recording.
keithsbrown1948@gmail.com
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