Letter V Classical Radio this week

A four-hour special on New Year's Day: A twist on the traditional Viennese waltz program, which I’m calling, with no offense intended toward any archdukes out there . . .

The Habsburg Sock-Hop

The program features the waltz and its folk ancestor, the Ländler, along with other music based on dances from the Czech and Slovak lands, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Eastern European Roma and Jewish cultures, in their authentic folk forms and as adapted by composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.

Jan. 1
noon-4 p.m. EST
1700-2100 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org

Past Masters:
Rossini: “La gazza ladra” (“The Thieving Magpie”) Overture
Royal Philharmonic/Colin Davis (EMI Classics)
(recorded 1961)

Haydn: Symphony
No. 97 in C major –
III: menuetto
Orchestra of the 18th Century/Frans Brüggen (Philips)

Past Masters:
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 – II: “In the tempo of a leisurely Ländler” 
Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Bruno Walter (Sony Classical)
(recorded 1961)

Joseph Lanner: “Die Werber” (“The Suitors”) Waltz
Willi Boskovsky Ensemble (Regis)

Johann Strauss II: “Tales from the Vienna Woods”
London Philharmonic/Franz Welser-Möst
(EMI Seraphim)

*Schubert: Ecossaises
Willi Boskovsky Ensemble (Regis)

traditional:
“Wallachian Lament”
Apollo Chamber Ensemble (Navona)

Past Masters:
Dvořák: Piano Quintet
in A major, Op. 81
Smetana Quartet;
Pavel Stepán, piano
(Testament)
(recorded 1966)

Dvořák: Dumka and Furiant, Op. 12
Radoslav Kvapil, piano (Alto)

Smetana: Polka in A major
András Schiff, piano (Apex)

Past Masters:
Brahms: Hungarian dances
No. 5 in G minor
(orchestration by Albert Parlow)
No. 6 in D major
(orchestration by Parlow)
No. 21 in E minor
(orchestration by Dvořák)
No. 1 in G minor
(orchestration by Brahms)
Vienna Philharmonic/
Fritz Reiner (Decca)
(recorded 1960)

Haydn: Quartet in D major, Op. 20, No. 4 – III: Menuetto alla zingarese
Daedalus Quartet (Bridge)

Bartók: “Contrasts”
Charles West, clarinet; Laura Roelofs, violin; Landon Bilyeu, piano (Klavier)

Kodály:
“Dances of Galanta”
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi (Chandos)

traditional:
“Seremoj és Románca”
Apollo Chamber Ensemble (Navona)

Past Masters:
*Bartók: "Romanian Folk Dances”
Philharmonia Orchestra/Charles Mackerras (Testament)
(recorded 1960)

Past Masters:
Enescu: “Romanian Rhapsody” No. 1
Philharmonia Orchestra/Charles Mackerras (Testament)
(recorded 1960)

Chopin: mazurkas
in F minor, Op. 63, No. 2
in A minor, Op. 67, No. 4
in C sharp minor, Op. 63,
No. 3
in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4
Stephen Hough, piano (Hyperion)

traditional: “Beckman’s Hora”
Budowitz (Koch Schwann)

Mahler: Symphony No. 1
in D major – III: “Solemn and measured, without dragging – very simple and modest, like a folk song”
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra/
Michael Tilson Thomas (SFS Media)

Ligeti: Quartet No. 1 (“Metamorphoses nocturnes”)
Hagen Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon)

* Time permitted adding the Schubert Ecosaisses and Bartók’s “Romanian Folk Dances” to the originally posted program.

Radio special

In my second week substituting for Mark Lederway on Tuesday Classics, an end-of-the-year special: An all-Beethoven, all-Past Masters program of exceptional recordings, made between 1926 and 1985.

The featured artists: the duo of violinist Fritz Kreisler and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff; the Budapest String Quartet; pianists Claudio Arrau and Walter Gieseking; and, in three of the most compelling Beethoven symphony performances ever recorded, conductors George Szell (No. 5), Franz Konwitschny (No. 7) and Klaus Tennstedt (No. 9).

Dec. 30
noon-4 p.m. EST
1700-2100 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org

all-Beethoven program:

Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/
George Szell (Philips)
(recorded 1966)

Sonata in G major, Op. 30, No. 3
Fritz Kreisler, violin; Sergei Rachmaninoff, piano (Biddulph)
(recorded 1926)

“The Ruins of Athens” – “Turkish March”
Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam/
Willem Mengelberg (Grammofono 2000)
(recorded 1930)

Piano Concerto
No. 4 in G major
Claudio Arrau, piano
Staatskapelle Dresden/
Colin Davis
(Philips)
(recorded 1984)

Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4
Budapest String Quartet (Sony Classical)
(recorded 1941)

Symphony No. 7 in A major
Gewandhaus Orchestra, Leipzig/
Franz Konwitschny (Berlin Classics)
(recorded 1960)

Sonata in C major, Op. 53 (“Waldstein”)
Walter Gieseking, piano (Andromedia)
(recorded 1938)

Symphony No. 9 in D minor (“Choral”)
Mari Anne Häggander, soprano; Alfreda Hodgson, contralto; Robert Tear, tenor; Gwynne Howell, bass
London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic/Klaus Tennstedt (BBC Music)
(recorded 1985)

Claude Frank (1925-2014)

Claude Frank, the eminent German-born American pianist and teacher, has died at 89. A student of Artur Schnabel, Frank was admired for his interpretations of Beethoven and other Austro-German repertory.

He was active for six decades as a soloist and chamber musician – notably in duos with his wife, the late pianist Lilian Kallir, and his daughter, violinist Pamela Frank; but he exerted his widest influence through his teaching at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.

An obituary by The New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/arts/music/claude-frank-pianist-admired-for-performances-of-beethoven-is-dead-at-89.html

Castleton Festival 2015

The Castleton Festival, in its first season since the death of its founding maestro, Lorin Maazel, will present Charles Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette,” Maurice Ravel’s “L’heure espagnole”
(“The Spanish Hour”), Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” and premiere performances of Derrick Wang’s comic opera “Scalia/Ginsburg.”

The 2015 festival, staged at Castleton Farms in Rappahanock County, VA, and now under the artistic direction of Dietlinde Turban Maazel, the conductor’s widow, will run from July 2 to Aug. 2.

Its lengthened season accommodates a new Castleton Jazz Academy, a residential program for high-school musicians, hosted by Wynton Marsalis and run in conjunction with Jazz at Lincoln Center, the New York performance troupe founded in 1987 by Marsalis.

The jazz academy, one of the last initiatives of Lorin Maazel for the festival, will run from July 19 to Aug. 2, with four concerts on the schedule.

Fabio Luisi, principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, will lead a July 19 concert featuring opera highlights. Rafael Payare, a Castleton alumnus who has been named the festival’s principal conductor, and Salvatore Percaccio will share conducting duties for the operas and other concerts.

Also on the schedule are chamber-music and vocal recitals, and Castleton’s popular bluegrass and “All-American Band” concerts during the July 4 weekend.

The festival, founded in 2009, brings more than 200 young musicians and theatrical artists to the Maazel family’s 600-acre estate in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Performances are staged in the 650-seat Festival Theatre and 140-seat Theatre House.

Tickets for the 2015 festival go on sale on Jan. 5. The Castleton box-office number is (866) 974-0767.

For a complete schedule, ticket prices and availability and other information, visit the festival’s website, www.castletonfestival.org

Holiday cheer from NYC

A quartet of busking fiddlers are playing Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 3 in a New York subway station, when who should turn up but . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh8AcKzm3Uw

As several commenters observe, only in New York.

via www.jalopnik.com

Radio special

For the next couple of weeks, I’ll be substituting for Mark Lederway on WDCE’s Tuesday Classics. The Christmas Eve-eve program is an all-English affair, with a complete performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” a set of carols by Peter Warlock, and Vaughan Williams’ Christmas cantata “Hodie (This Day).”

Dec. 23
noon-4 p.m. EST
1600-2100 UTC/GMT
WDCE, University of Richmond
90.1 FM
www.wdce.org

Handel: “Messiah”
Lynne Dawson, soprano; Hilary Summers, contralto; John Mark Ainsley, tenor;
Alastair Miles, bass
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Brandenburg Consort/
Stephen Cleobury
(Argo)

Peter Warlock:
“Benedicamus Domino”
“A Cornish Carol”
“A Cornish Christmas Carol”
“Corpus Christi”
“I Saw a Fair Maiden”
“As Dew in Aprylle”
“The Birds”
“Carillon, Carilla”
Margaret Cable, mezzo-soprano;
Julian Empett, baritone
Allegri Singers/Louis Halsey
Matthew Morley, organ
Rosemary Barnes, piano
Rosamunde String Quartet (Somm)

Vaughan Williams: “Hodie (This Day): a Christmas Cantata”
Elizabeth Gale, mezzo-soprano;
Robert Tear, tenor;
Stephen Roberts, baritone
London Symphony Chorus
Choristers of St. Paul’s Cathedral
London Symphony Orchestra/Richard Hickox 
(EMI Classics)

* * *

Letter V Classical Radio will not air on Christmas Day, but will return for a four-hour special on New Year’s Day.