Letter V Classical Radio this week

Aug. 2
noon-3 p.m. EDT
1600-1900 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org

Mozart: “Così fan tutte” Overture
La Cetra Baroque Orchestra, Basel/
Andrea Marcon
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Stravinsky:
“Suite Italienne”
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Péter Nagy, piano
(ECM)

Mendelssohn:
Quartet in A minor, Op. 13
Pacifica Quartet
(Çedille)

Dvořák: Symphony No. 5 in F major
Czech Philharmonic/Václav Neumann
(Supraphon)

Past Masters:
Richard Strauss: “Don Juan”
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/
Willem Mengelberg
(recorded 1938)
(Dutton Laboratories)

Grieg: “Lyric Pieces” –
“Evening in the Mountains”
“At Your Feet”
“Summer Evening”
“Gone”
“Remembrances”
Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
(EMI Classics)

Berlioz: “Les nuits d’été”
Melanie Diener, soprano
Kenneth Tarver, tenor
Denis Sedov, bass
Cleveland Orchestra/
Pierre Boulez
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Johann Strauss II:
“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”
Anima Eterna Orchestra/Jos van Immerseel
(Outhere Rewind)

Review: Symphony Summer Series

Schuyler Slack, cello
David Fisk, piano
Gottwald Playhouse, Dominion Arts Center

Works by Frank Bridge, speaking in radically different musical voices on either side of the divide of World War I, framed the third program of the Richmond Symphony Summer Series, this year focusing on late-romantic and modern chamber works from Britain.

Schuyler Slack, who joined the symphony’s cello section in 2015, and pianist David Fisk, the orchestra’s English-born executive director, gave affectionate but not treacly readings of Bridge’s “Four Pieces” (1900-10), paced by a lightly swaggering treatment of the set’s Serenade.

The two musicians turned sternly emphatic in Bridge’s Cello Sonata in D minor, as troubling an echo of wartime trauma as any chamber work written during the First World War. Slack and Fisk held little back in expression or volume. It was a compelling performance of a turbulent but uneven and episodic piece.

The program’s two central offerings, Arnold Bax’s “Folk Tale” and Frederick Delius’ Romance for cello and piano, sampled two dialects of the British impressionistic/pastoral style.

Bax’s folk tale is Irish and epic (“think big giants,” Fisk advised the audience) and richly atmospheric – remarkably so, coming from two instruments, even if one is has the tonal and expressive depth of the cello.

Delius’ Romance typifies his open-textured, French-accented style. Fisk and Slack made unusually lively discourse of the Bax, and captured the urbane and emotionally ambivalent tones of voice that Delius gave this unusual romance.

Letter V Classical Radio this week

July 26
noon-3 p.m. EDT
1600-1900 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org

Beethoven: “Leonore” Overture No. 1
Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard
(Simax)

Haydn: Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5
Quatuor Mosaïques
(Naïve)

Past Masters:
Mahler:
“Songs of a Wayfarer”
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone
Philharmonia Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler
(recorded 1952)
(EMI Classics)

Bruckner:
Symphony No. 3
in D minor
Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig/
Andriss Nelsons
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Wagner: 
“Tristan und Isolde”
– Prelude
Staatskapelle Dresden/Carlos Kleiber
(Deutsche Grammophon)

Past Masters:
Saint-Saëns:
Piano Concerto No. 2
in G minor
Earl Wild, piano
RCA Victor
Symphony Orchestra/
Massimo Freccia
(recorded 1967)
(Chesky)

Schubert:
Fantasy in C major, D. 934
Jennifer Koh, violin
Reiko Uchida, piano
(Çedille)

Letter V Classical Radio this week

July 19
noon-3 p.m. EDT
1600-1900 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org

Peter Warlock: “Capriol Suite”
Camerata Wales/
Owain Arwel Hughes
(BIS)

Past Masters:
Haydn: Sonata in C minor, Hob. XVI:20
Christian Zacharias, piano
(recorded 1977)
(EMI Classics)

Nielsen:
“Little Suite” (Nonet), Op. 1
Young Danish Chamber Orchestra/
Gunnar Tagmose
(Paula)

Schubert: Introduction and Variations on “Trockne Blumen,”
D. 802
Wolfgang Schulz, flute
Stefan Vladar, piano
(Camerata)

Beethoven:
Quartet in
C sharp minor,
Op. 131
(orchestration by
Terje Tonnesen)
Camerata Nordica/
Terje Tonnesen
(Altara)

Mendelssohn:
Prelude and Fugue in E minor,
Op. 35, No. 1
Benjamin Grosvenor, piano
(Decca)

Bartók:
“Music for Strings,
Percussion and Celesta”
Scottish Chamber Orchestra/
Charles Mackerras
(Linn)

Handel: Concerto grosso in A major, Op. 6, No. 11
Academy of Ancient Music/Andrew Manze
(Harmonia Mundi)

Spare Air this weekend

What with one thing and another (and another . . . ), feels like a good time for a couple of hours of Mozart.

July 16
7-9 p.m. EDT
2300-0100 GMT/UTC
WDCE-FM, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org

Mozart: “The Magic Flute” Overture
English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner
(DG Archiv)

Mozart: Serenade in C minor, K. 388
winds of Orchestre de Champs Elysées/
Philippe Herreweghe
(Harmonia Mundi)

Mozart:
“Vorrei spiegarvi, o Dio!”
K. 418
Diana Damrau,
soprano
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie/
Jéremie Rohrer
(Erato)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 16 in D major, K. 451
Mitsuko Uchida, piano
English Chamber Orchestra/Jeffrey Tate
(Philips)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466
Leif Ove Andsnes,
piano & director
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
(EMI Classics)

Mozart: Mass in C major, K. 317 (“Coronation”)
Barbara Schlick, soprano
Elisabeth von Magnus, alto
Paul Agnew, tenor
Matthijs Masdag, bass
Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir/
Ton Koopman
(Erato)

Symphony Summer Series reviewed

My review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the opening concert of the Richmond Symphony Summer Series, featuring violinist Adrian Pintea and pianist Russell Wilson, at Dominion Arts Center’s Gottwald Playhouse:

http://www.richmond.com/entertainment/music/music-review-richmond-symphony-summer-series-the-flower-of-england/article_11fa9812-b3c3-5968-a871-326f0bf572f5.html

Letter V Classical Radio this week

Symphonies, from early classical to neo-classical, centering on a singular performance of Beethoven’s “Eroica” by Jordi Savall and his period-instruments band, Le Concert des Nations.

July 12
noon-3 p.m. EST
1700-2000 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
http://www.wdce.org

Past Masters:
William Boyce: Symphony No. 5 in D major
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/
Neville Marriner
(recorded 1976)
(Decca)

Past Masters:
Bizet: Symphony in C major
French National
Radio Orchestra/
Thomas Beecham
(recorded 1959)
(EMI Classics)

Past Masters:
Britten: “Simple Symphony”
English Chamber Orchestra/
Benjamin Britten
(recorded 1968)
(Decca)

Mozart:
Symphony in D major,
K. 95
Academy of
Ancient Music/
Christopher Hogwood
(L’Oiseau Lyre)

Beethoven:
Symphony No. 3
in E flat major (“Eroica”)
Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall
(AliaVox)

Shostakovich:
Symphony No. 9
in E flat major
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic/
Vasily Petrenko
(Naxos)

Haydn:
Symphony No. 92
in G major (“Oxford”)
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra/René Jacobs
(Harmonia Mundi)