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91 .3FM
 


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WWUH 91.3 FM
Program Guide
November/December, 2016
In This Issue
Staff Spotlight
Program Idea?
Celtic Airs Update
Flashback - 1993
Classical Music on WWUH
Composer Birthdays
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
WWUH Archive Now Online
How To Listen
Join Our List


     Our 2016 Fall Fund Drive was a resounding success bringing in our goal of $50,000 in just seven days! A million thanks to everyone who contributed.     
     We are busy sending out premiums to those who requested them and who have paid already.
      If you missed the fund drive and still want to donate, you can either just send us a check or click on the  Donate Now button of our home page to make a secure online payment. Some premiums are still available.
  
  
John Ramsey
General Manager

  
Staff Spotlight
Christina

 
     My name is Christina and I am the host of "Beyond the Sound Barrier" on Thursday mornings from 3-6 am. I have volunteered at WWUH since 2005 when I started coming to the station with my husband, John Scott, who has been an announcer at WWUH since the late 1980's. I would come up to his show, help out, co-host and sing the theme song, "Underground Radio" with John. Having volunteered and helped with his show I had quite a bit of experience before I qualified for my own show. I did my formal training in 2010 and had to create a demo. I was quite nervous the first time I ran the board by myself. It was pretty awesome though! As time went on I got more comfortable and not so terrified of making a mistake.
      I got my own show "Beyond the Sound Barrier" in 2012. I am very eclectic but my all time favorite band is the Grateful Dead. I definitely classify myself as a deadhead. Experiencing a "Dead" show was a life-changing experience for me. There have been some great incarnations of the Grateful Dead since Jerry passed away. My favorite has been Dead and Company. I had the opportunity to see 5 of their shows in the past year. I think my favorite show of the last two tours was the second show at Fenway Park this summer. It was an amazing show- the energy was absolutely contagious!
     I also love other jam-band music. I love rock from the late 60's and 70's, blues, folk, bluegrass and throw a little ambient in there for good measure. R & B, old school hip hop, soul and older rap are also passions of mine. Music has truly changed my life for the better. I feel it transcends space and time, it can lift me up when I am having a rough day or keep me smiling when I am having an awesome day.
     I love going to concerts and festivals. I enjoy nature and being outdoors. We have a beautiful backyard with a brook and a chiminea and I love sitting out there and relaxing. It's super peaceful and tranquil. I love going to the beach and being near water. I like watching movies and reading books. I also write poetry. I really enjoy baking and I also enjoy eating what I've baked. It's usually pretty tasty if I do say so!
    I am a singer and percussion player and perform often with my husband, John who is an awesome songwriter and musician. I've been singing for as long as I can remember. Music has moved me since I was a little girl.
     I chose to do a show at WWUH
because I love the station. It is truly a privilege and a gift to be a part of such an amazing place that brings joy to so many people! WWUH is important because we are a station for the people. We have an amazing group of volunteers who truly care about what we do. We have something for everyone and I love having the freedom and ability to express myself through the music that I play.
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

    Steve Dieterich
          
 
          As you may know, I retired from my job as a family practitioner in July 2016 after 38 years of medical practice.
          Now, the time has come for another retirement, this time from my Celtic Airs activities at WWUH radio. I've been doing my weekly radio show Tuesday mornings for 24+ years (1127 shows total) and producing Celtic concerts for 23 years (185 shows in all).
          My first two grandchildren are due to be born in California before the end of October. My wife and I have decided this would be a good time for us to move somewhere closer to our daughters, their husband's and their first children.
          I was not the first DJ to play Celtic music on WWUH, nor will I be the last! Former WWUH DJ Ed Savage has previous experience producing a program of Celtic music. He will replace me as of 11/1/16. I'm not sure if anyone will take over the concert series; that remains to be seen.
          I would like to thank John Ramsey, long time general manager at WWUH, for being so supportive and encouraging over my ears at the radio station. I would also like to thank my fellow DJ's, all volunteers, who filled in for me over the years during my vacations; Larry, Brian, Denise, Susan, Rob and Ed.
          The concert series was successful due in no small part to the volunteers who assisted me in a variety of ways for so many years. Our performers were always impressed by the skills of our sound engineers, all named Chris; Chris Larsen, Chris Heerema and Chris Marti.Tom Curtiss, Joe King and my wife Tina always took good care of the band (CD sales and hot meals) and the audience (concession sales).
          WWUH Business manager, Mary Dowst was invaluable to me, making sure contracts were signed and that bands were paid.
          Our twice a year fund drives were always a great success. During the three hour Celtic Airs time block, my very generous and dedicated listeners calling in to pledge were ably assisted by Joe King, Tom Curtiss, Bobbi and Doug Morehouse, Bob Pilvenis, Brian Connolly and my on air partner Greg O'Brien.
          Lastly and perhaps most importantly, I want to thank all my faithful Celtic Airs listeners and concert attendees. You invited me into your homes, cars and places of work on Tuesday mornings. I hope I entertained and informed you!
          You were also a truly appreciative, supportive and generous audience at our concerts. For this, you are well known and esteemed among the traditional musicians of Scotland and Ireland who have graced our stages over the past 23 years.
          And so, it's now my time to depart WWUH with sadness but not regret. I've truly enjoyed all the opportunities my volunteer work here has afforded me. I'll certainly miss sharing Celtic music, new and old, with you each week. It will also be hard to loose the face to face, up close and personal relationships I've had with a large number of very skilled, entertaining and gracious musicians.
          Perhaps the future will provide me a chance to restart my career as a radio host and concert promoter?? You just never know ! Even if that never comes to pass, the memories I have from my time WWUH will be everlasting.
          Thank you ALL for being a big, happy part of my life for so many years!
 
              Steve Dieterich
               Producer/Promoter, Celtic Airs
  
C
Flashback - 1993

    Folk Next Door
          
         
A short history of the
Folk Next Door
by Ed McKeon
  

In 1992, WWUH Folk Music Director Ed McKeon and folksinger and promoter Bruce Pratt approached the WWUH executive committee with a scheme that would recognize unrecognized "folk" musicians while raising money for a volunteer-staffed, community supported radio station that could always use a little more cash. And have a little musical fun in the process.
     The idea was this: hold a concert, invite 15 musical acts who would donate their time and the use of their music, record the concert, use the gate money to pay for a pressing of a CD and cassette release, and release a recording called The Folk Next Door. As you have guessed, the WWUH Executive Committee said yes.
     The first concert, held in the Wilde Auditorium was a huge success. The concert sold out. The acts were astonishingly good. And both the musicians and the audience seemed to love the experience. The cassettes and CDs flew out the door, prompting a re-pressing (the one and only - a printers error will tell you if you have a first edition. On the original, Hugh Blumenfeld, Last Fair Deal and Amy Davis and Danny Gardella appeared on the last page of the CD booklet. On the corrected edition, Folk Next Door printed backwards appears on the last page of the CD booklet.) And the music was played on stations throughout the country. Highlights: the "surprise" visit by Richard Shindell, John Whelan's wandering squeezebox, the debut of Donna Martin, Don Sineti's chorus and shanty men and women.
     The next year we named the concert "Honey Hide the Banjo, It's The Folk Next Door again". It made a great T-shirt, but was way too long for most DJs to wrap their lips around. The 1993 concert was to be an all-day affair, starting outside with a free concert, with an evening paid event. Rain forced us inside after the third act and threw off the schedule till the concert ended around 2 a.m. Once again, the music was splendid, although the audience was not entirely happy, or entirely awake by the end of the affair, and on the way we lost a Chinese brother. The CD was heard, eventually, on airwaves as far away as New Zealand. The video version of the concert is still playing on local cable access stations. Highlights: the unofficial hoot hosted by Hugh Blumenfeld, The Nields, and Bruce Pratt as we changed stages, Dar Williams opening the evening show, Kate McDonnell soloing, everyone asking "who is that guy" after J.P. Jones played, the Gospel Stars of Hartford tearing the house down, our visit from folk great Eric von Schmidt.
     In 1994, we pulled in the reins and had a "Hoot." With fifteen acts again, the evening regained a sense of sanity, and the Folk Next Door machine was gassed and humming. Everyone seemed to know what to do, where to do it, and our innovative red light let the acts know when they were out of time. Highlights: Madwoman in the Attic dropping a verse without anyone noticing, Pete Lehndorff knocking them dead, Jeter Le Pont getting the audience involved.
     In 1995 we received the most audition tapes ever for our sixteen open slots, and some came from as far away as California. Our musical guest who traveled the longest distance to appear was Andrew Calhoun, the exceptional singer-songwriter and proprietor of Waterbug Music.
     Highlights: Andrew Calhoun as standup comedian, Greg Greenway employing the rhythm and voices of the audience, and Travor Hollow killing them in the wee hours.
     [Editor's Note:  There were many more highlights in the next four years, but unfortunately the last Folk Next Door Concert was held in 2000.   Due to the time consuming job it had become, and many other variables related to such a massive undertaking, the FND series has come to a close.]

  
WWUH Classical Programming  November/December 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

November
Tue
1
Telemann: Ouverture-Suite in A minor TWV 55:a2; Paul Hindemith: Sonata No. 1 in A for Piano; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata for Trinity 23: BWV 163 'Nur jedem das Seine'; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat major, K. 449; Reger: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, Op. 146;
Frederick Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Wed
2
Barber: Symphony No. 2; Richard Dering: Motets; Rossini: Choruses from Guillaume Tell; Britten: Irish Melodies; Charles Avison: Violin Concerti
Thu
3
Fenby: Rossini on Ilkla Moor Overture; Scheidt: Dances, O Jesulein Suss; Brentner: Concerti Op. 4 #5-6; Bellini: I Puritani - Qui la voce sua soave, La Sonnambula - Ah non credea mirarti, Oboe Concerto in E Flat; Barry: Selections from Movies; Browne: To Gratiana Dancing and Singing; Benda: Violin Sonata in A; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Meder: Symphony Op. 4 #1; Paradisi: Keyboard Sonata #6 in A "Toccata"; Mathias: Serenade; Rossini: Tancredi Overture; Bernard: Divertissement in F; Méhul: Symphony #4 in E.
Fri
4
Another Sirius feature
Sun
6
Vivaldi: Il Farnace
Mon
7
Gregg Smith Conducts Charles Ives; Morton Gould Conducts Charles Ives;
Drake's Village Brass Band...Glen Adsit and the Hartt Wind Ensemble - Raw Earth
Tue
8
Haydn: String Quartet in f, Op. 20, #5;  Bolcom: First Symphony for Band;  Franck: Violin Sonata, transcribed for cello;  Boito: Mefistofele, Prologue
Wed
9
Host's choice from new acquisitions and more
Thu
10
Morricone: Selections from Movies; Rabaud: Solo de concours Op. 10; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Myslivecek: Symphony #3 in F; Praetorius/Caroubel: Terpsichore Dances; Martin Luther: Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott; Bach/Stokowski: Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott; Paine: Fantasie on "Ein' feste Burg" Op. 13; Walther: Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott; Mendelssohn: Symphony #5 in D Op. 107 "Reformation"; F. Couperin: Pièces de clavecin - excerpts, Les Nations - "La Piemontoise"; Schieferdecker: Musicalische Concerte - Concerto #6 in D; Collins: Piano Music; Strauss: Dance Suite After Couperin.
Fri
11
Another Sirius feature
Sun
13
Preempted
Mon
14
Ginastera: Cantata Para América Mágica, Popl Vuh; Sudergerb: Piano Concerto "Within the Mirror of Time"; Harrison: Suite for Violin and American Gamelan
Drake's Village Brass Band...Dodworth Saxhorn Band - Home Sweet Home
Tue
15
Röntgen: Cello Concerto #3;  Berwald: Grand Septet in B♭;  Mahler: Symphony #6 in a;  Gebel: String Quartet in E♭, Op. 27
Wed
16
Franz Ignaz Beck: Symphony in F Major; Christoph Straus: Missa Veni Sponsa Christi; Georges Enescu: Orchestral Suite No. 3; Jan Ladislav Dussek: Grand Sonata in E Flat  Major; Mily Balakirev: Piano Concerto No. 2
Thu
17
New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library.
Fri
18
A JFK Memorial
Sun
20
Shakespeare: Hamlet
Mon
21
At 80 or 81... Riley: The Walrus in Memoriam; Pärt: Symphony #4 "Los Angeles"; Reich: Different Trains. Four Organs
Drake's Village Brass Band... Meridian Arts Ensemble - Seven Kings
Tue
22
Gade: Trio in F for Piano, Violin & Cello, Op. 42;  Wirén: Serenade for Strings, Op. 11;  Ries: Sonata in c, Op. 8, #2;  Dufay: Mass for St. Anthony Abbot
Wed
23
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"; Frank Martin: Mass; Edward MacDowell: Songs;  Delibes: Selections from Coppelia; Music from the Court of Philip II
Thu
24
Liszt: Auf Dem Wasser Au Singen; Vivaldi: Trio in C for Violin, Lute & b. c. RV 82; Schnittke: Suite in the Old Style; Joplin: Rags; Chinary Ung: Water Rings Overture; Edgar Meyer: 1B; Diemer: Go Tell it on the Mountain; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Pleyel: Symphony in c; Pierne: Fifteen Pieces Op.3 #1-5; Stavenhagen: Piano Concerto #2 in A; Natanael Berg: The Suitors of the Duchess Suite.
Fri
25
There's no school today - a teacher programs for kidlets and kidlets-at-heart
Sun
27
Britten: Paul Bunyan
Mon
28
Three Last Symphonies - Rautavarra: Symphony #8; Davies: Symphony #10; Panufnik: Symphony #10
Drake's Village Brass Band... Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass - Live
Tue
29
Telemann: Ouverture-Suite in C major TWV 55:C3 "Die Wassermusik/Hamburger Ebb' und Fluth";  Hindemith: Sonata for Solo Viola, Op. 25, No. 1; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata for Advent 1: BWV 61 'Nun komm der Heiden Heiland'; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15 in B-flat major, K. 450; Schumann: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 105; Reger: Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 114
Wed
30
Friedrich Gernsheim: Symphony No. 1; Bartolomiej Pekiel: Missa; Christian Dickhut: Serenade in A; Alessandro Marcello: La Cetera; Girolamo Frescobaldi: Capriccios
December
Thu
1
Grondahl: Summer Song; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Richter: Symphony #29 in g, Oboe Concerto in F; Lange-Muller: Piano Fantasy in c Op. 66 "Autumn"; Sarti: Now the Powers of Heaven; Gliere: The Zaporozhy Cossacks Op. 64; Castil-Blaze: Sextet #1 in E Flat; Reyer: Sigurd - Le bruit des chants; Hamerik: Symphony #6 in G for Strings Op. 38 "Spirituelle"; Gorecki: Totus Tuus; D'Indy: Tableaux de Voyage Op. 36; Dvorak: Romantic Pieces, Op. 75; W.S. Bennett: Symphony in g.
Fri
2
Music of Aaron Copland
Sun
3
Preempted
Mon
5
Shakespeare and Music - Vaughan Williams: Serenade to Music; Nyman: Prospero's Books; Barber: Two Songs from Anthony and Cleopatra; Korngold: Much Ado About Nothing
Drake's Village Brass Band...National Brass Ensemble - Gabrieli
Tue
6
Telemann: Overture-Suite in F major TWV 55:F2; P. Hindemith: Sonata for Althorn and Piano; Trio for Viola, Heckelphone and Piano, Op. 47; D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Johann Sebastian Bach: Trauerode BWV 198 'Lass, Fürstin, lass noch einen Strahl'; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 16 in D major, K. 451; Reger: Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 101
Wed
7
Reinhold Gliere: Symphony No. 2; Claude Goudimel: Psalms of the French Reformation; Franz Xavier Gebel: String Quartet in D Major; Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 1; Sibelius: Five Romantic Pieces
Thu
8
Sojo: Cancion; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Rosetti: Symphony in g; Sibelius: Night Ride & Sunrise Op. 55, Symphony #2 in D Op. 43; 5 Pieces Op. 85 'The Flowers'; Ponce: Theme, Variations & Finale; Martinu: Double Concerto for 2 String Orchestras, Piano & Timpani; Dusek: Symphony in C; Gallay: Grand Caprice #8; Ladmirault: Breton Dances; Cushing: Angel Camp; Weinberg: Trumpet Concerto.
Fri
9
Joshua Bell - just short of a half-century
Sun
11
Beethoven: Fidelio
Mon
12
Monday Night at the Movies - Williams: The Fury; Horner: Collage - the Last Work; Mancini: The Great Waldo Pepper
Drake's Village Brass Band ... Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra - William Alwyn: Film Music
Tue
13
Alwyn: Elizabethan Dances;  Dvořák: String Quartet #12 in F, Op. 96;  Sibelius: Violin Concerto in d, Op 47;  Szymanowski: Stabat Mater, Op. 53
Wed
14
Carl Reinecke: Symphony No. 1; Umberto Giordano: Selections from  Andrea Chenier; Mahler: Early Songs; Jean-Nicolas Geoffroy: Organ Pieces; Smetana: Piano Trio; Henrico Albicastro: Concerti
Thu
15
Cherubini: Médée Overture; Bach: Concerto for Violin, Oboe & Flute in d (from BWV 1063); Fauré: Masques et Bergamasques; Haydn: Trumpet Concerto; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Sorkočević: Symphony #7 in G; Demantius: Benedicamus Domino à 6; Delalande: Panis Angelicus, Sinfonies pour les soupers du roi - Suite #4 in D; Holst: St Paul's Suite; Guion: Sheep & Goat, The Harmonica Player; Mozart: Violin Concerto #1 in B-Flat K. 207; Farkas: Aria e Rondo all'ungherese for 2 Violins & Strings; Telemann: Viola Concerto in G; Mozart: Symphony #35 in D K. 385 "Haffner".
Fri
16
Saint Saens without all the animals
Sun
18
Matteson: Das grosste Kind; Pigs Could Fly
Mon
19
Host's Choice
Tue
20
Carpenter: Symphony #1;  Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48;  Rosetti: Concerto in E♭for 2 Horns & Orchestra;  Fesca: String Quartet #2 in f#, Op. 1, #2
Wed
21
Bizet: Symphony in C; Vojtech Pelikan: Missa Sancti Adalbert; Martinu: Marionettes; Johann Pezel: Alphabet Sonatas; Jean Rousse: Lute Pieces
Thu
22
Franz Schmidt: Notre Dame - Act 1 Intermezzo, Symphony #4 in C; Abel: Flute Concerto #5 in G, Overture (Symphony) in B Flat Op. 17 #2; Taylor: Through the Looking Glass Op. 12 - Insects; Alan Bush: Summer Valley Op. 125; Fampas: Greek Dance; Kurka: The Good Soldier Schweik Overture; Leisner: Nostalgia; Puccini: Preludio Sinfonico, Crisantemi "Elegy", Arias; Varese: Density 21.5; Bottesini: Double Bass Concerto #2 in b; Mozart's Contemporaries: Symphonies from Abel to Zimmermann Sperger: Symphony in B Flat.
Fri
23
It's Chanukah and Christmas this weekend
Sun
25
Handel: Messiah
Mon
26
Host's Choice
Tue
27
Telemann: Magnificat; P. Hindemith: The Long Christmas Dinner; Johann Sebastian Bach: Cantata for St. John's Day, Christmas 3: BWV 64 'Sehet, welch eine Liebe'; Medieval and Renaissance Christmas music
Wed
28
Witold Lutoslawski: Symphony No. 2; Otto Olson: Selections from Requiem; Johann Fischer: Ariadne Musica; Nino Rota: String Quartet; Natanael Berg:
The Suitors of the Duchess Suite
Thu
29
New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library.
Fri
30
Tomorrow is NYE!
  
  

  
Thursday Evening Classics
 
 
 
  Library
 
Thursday Evening Classics 
Composer Birthdays 
for November/December 2016
  
  
November 3
1587 (bapt) Samuel Scheidt
1689 Johann Joseph Ignaz Brentner
1801 Vincenzo Bellini
1888 William Charles Denis Browne
1911 Vladimir Ussachevsky
1933 John Barry
  
Vincenzo Bellini
Birth: November 3, 1801 in Catania, Sicily
Death: September 23, 1835 in Puteaux, France
Bellini was one of the most important composers of Italian opera in the early 19th century. His father and grandfather were both musicians. Bellini entered the Royal College of Music of San Sebastiano, now the Naples Conservatory, in 1819. Although he began in elementary classes, he progressed rapidly and was granted free tuition by 1820. Bellini's first opera, Adelson e Salvini, was chosen to be performed by the conservatory's students. Shortly thereafter, Domenico Barbaja of the San Carlo Opera offered Bellini his first commission for an opera, which resulted in Bianca e Gernando. That was followed by a second commission, and led to a long-term collaboration between Bellini and librettist Felice Romani.
  
The premiere of Il pirata, a romantic tragedy, at La Scala, Milan, established Bellini as an internationally acclaimed opera composer. Critics drew attention to the expressiveness of the melodies, the absence of conventional vocal pyrotechnics, and the importance given to the recitatives. As Bellini gained experience and recognition, he cultivated a practice that stressed quality instead of quantity. He composed fewer operas, for which he commanded higher prices. An exception was Zaira, written hurriedly with Romani for the inauguration of the Teatro Ducale at Parma. He recovered, though, with I Capuleti e i Montecchi (based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet) in 1830. The year 1831 proved most successful for Bellini as two of his most famous operas, La sonnambula and Norma, were produced. Both operas had the great Giuditta Pasta in the title role.
  
After a dispute with Romani, Bellini spent the summer of 1833 in London directing performances of his operas. He then moved to Paris, where he composed and produced his last opera, I puritani. Unlike Bellini's previous two operas, I puritani was an immediate and lasting success. Future plans included more operas with Romani, with whom he was now reconciled. But, at the height of his career and only 33 years old, Bellini died of a chronic intestinal ailment, in a small town near Paris.
  
Although he embodied much of the Italian operatic tradition, Bellini made a greater impact outside his country than any of his compatriots, with the possible exception of Rossini. Wagner, Schumann, Berlioz, and Tchaikovsky all paid him tribute and his influence on Chopin is evident. He was admired not so much for his operas in their entirety as for his melodies. His flowing, exquisitely sculpted vocal lines represent the epitome of the bel canto style and helped to give a new direction to the that tradition, towards greater naturalism of expression.
 
November 10
1483 Martin Luther
1679 Johann Christian Schieferdecker
1873 Henri Benjamin Rabaud
1889 Edward Joseph Collins
1928 Ennio Morricone
 
Francois Couperin
Birth: November 10, 1668 in Paris, France
Death: September 11, 1733 in Paris, France
François Couperin was the most distinguished member of the famous Couperin family and was one of the leading composers of the French Baroque era. He became known as 'Couperin le Grand' because of his proficiency as an organist. He is best known for his harpsichord works, all of which are found in the collection of some 230 pieces in four books entitled Pièces de clavecin. His music showed the influence of Lully and incorporated elements from the Italian school. Moreover, he successfully integrated the French and Italian styles in his Les goût réunis ou nouveaux concerts, a collection of chamber compositions for unspecified instruments.
  
Many of his works were lost, as none of his original manuscripts has survived. His father, Charles, was an organist, and young François' early musical training came from him. Only child François and his mother were reasonably well cared for following Charles' premature death, in part because of the kindness of Jacques Thomelin, organist at Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, who looked after the young boy and instructed him in music. Couperin became the organist at Saint-Gervais at age 17, holding that post until his death. In 1689, he married Marie-Anne Ansault, daughter of a wine merchant who had many relatives in other business endeavors. The following year, he published his so-called "organ masses," known as Pièces d'orgue, comprising two masses and several smaller pieces.
  
It was around this time that the composer came under the influence of the Italian school, particularly Corelli. He introduced into France the Italian trio sonata form. In December 1693, Couperin was appointed organist at the Royal Chapel by King Louis XIV, sharing the post with Buterne, Nivers, and Lebègue, and performing his duties only in the first quarter of each year. On almost every Sunday, Couperin and colleagues gave chamber concerts for the king, for which he composed what he called 'Concerts'. He maintained his position at Saint-Gervais for the other three-quarters of the year. He also taught the Duke of Burgundy on harpsichord and six other princes and princesses.
  
The composer would later write an important treatise on playing the harpsichord entitled, L'Art de toucher le clavecin, containing instructions for fingering, methods of touch, and execution of ornamentation in performing. This had strong influence on Bach. Beginning around 1697, he wrote a series of motets for the Royal Chapel, completed in 1702. In the early part of the 18th century, Couperin began composing a large number of works for the harpsichord, which would appear in the Premier Livre fromthe Pièces de clavecin in 1713. The Second Book was published in 1717, and the final two came in 1722 and 1730. There is evidence that Couperin also found time for concerts in the early part of the 18th century in Versailles and surrounding areas.
  
 Little is known about Couperin's life from about 1700 onward. There is record of his renting a country home in 1710 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, confirming the view he was financially secure. In 1719, Couperin became harpsichordist to King Louis XV. By this time, he was recognized as the leading composer in France and the greatest exponent of organ and harpsichord teaching as well.
 
November 17
1787 Michele Carafa
1919 Hershy Kay
1930 David Amram
  
November 24
1862 Bernhard Stavenhagen
1868 Scott Joplin
1892 Isidor Achron
1911 Erik Bergman
1927 Emma Lou Diemer
1934 Alfred Schnittke
1940 Wendell Logan
1942 Chinary Ung
1953 Tod Machover
1960 Edgar Meyer
 
Alfred Schnittke
Birth: November 24, 1934 in Engels, Russia
Death: August 3, 1998 in Hamburg, Germany
Schnittke was the son of German-Jewish parents. From 1946 - 1948 his family lived in Vienna, where he took his first music lessons, an introduction to the great Austro-German musical tradition. He returned to Moscow to attend the Conservatory from 1953- 1958. During his student days, Shostakovich and Mahler were his chief influences. During the 1960s, however, the scores of Schoenberg and Stravinsky became available, and Schnittke made a careful study of serial technique. He returned to the Moscow Conservatory to teach instrumentation from 1962 - 1972. Thereafter he split his time between Moscow and Hamburg and supported himself as a film composer.
  
Schnittke could have decided to become an officially sanctioned Soviet composer, but his pivotal meeting with Luigi Nono in 1963 and his ensuing study of the Western avant-garde led him to turn his back on any prospects of a secure career. Because of the fluency in many styles required for film scores, he changed his approach to concert works, as he explained in his essay Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music. This 'polystylism' was soon demonstrated in a major work, his First Symphony, which includes pastiches of Bach and of Soviet march music and quotations from Beethoven, Chopin, and Grieg, and also calls for jazz improvisation in one section and collective free improvisation in another. Despite the criticism of Soviet authorities, Schnittke's fame gradually spread, and from the early 1980s his name became established in the West.
  
In 1985 Schnittke suffered a stroke, but his productivity continued. He completed several important stage works, among them the ballet Peer Gynt and the operas Life with an Idiot, Gesualdo, and Historia von D. Johann Fausten, all of which were first performed outside Russia. From 1990 until his death in 1998, he lived exclusively in Hamburg. His second stroke, in 1998, was fatal. Schnittke composed 9 symphonies, 6 concerti grossi, 4 violin concertos, 2 cello concertos, concertos for piano and a triple concerto for violin, viola and cello, 4 string quartets, ballet scores, choral and vocal works.
  
A Christian mystic, Schnittke had philosophical theories that permeated his music. According to his biographer Alexander Ivashkin, he believed a composer "should be a medium or a sensor remembering what he hears from somewhere else and whose mind acts as a translator only. Music comes from some sort of divine rather than human area."
  
December 1
1605 Juan de Padilla
1709 Franz Xaver Richter
1729 Giuseppe Sarti
1779 Pyotr Ivanovich Turchaninov
1784 Francois Henri Joseph Castil-Blaze
1823 Ernest Reyer
1847 Agathe Backer Grondahl
1850 Peter Erasmus Lange-Muller
  
December 8
1731 Frantisek Xaver Dusek
1795 Jacques Francois Gallay
1865 Jean Sibelius
1877 Paul Emile Ladmirault
1882 Manuel Maria Ponce
1887 Vicente Emilio Sojo
1890 Bohuslav Martinu
1905 Charles Cushing
1907 Tony Aubin
1919 Mieczyslaw Weinberg (Moisei Vainberg)
  
Jean Sibelius
Birth: December 8, 1865 in Hämeenlinna, Finland
Death: September 20, 1957 in Järvenpää, Finland
Sibelius was the second of three children. His physician father left the family bankrupt, owing to his reckless spending, a trait that, along with heavy drinking, he would pass on to Jean. Jean showed talent on the violin and at age 9 composed his first work for it. Although he would come to exemplify Finnish nationalism, Sibelius spoke no Finnish until he was about 8 years old. When he was 11 his mother enrolled him in the first grammar school in the country to adopt Finnish as the teaching language instead of Swedish and Latin. 
  
Contact with Finnish opened up to him the whole universe of national mythology embodied in the Kalevala. His imagination was stirred by this, as it was by the great Swedish lyric poets J. L. Runeberg and Viktor Rydberg and, above all, by the Finnish landscape with its forests and lakes. In 1885 Sibelius entered the University of Helsinki to study law, but after only a year found himself drawn back to music. He took up composition and violin and became a close friend of Busoni. Though Sibelius auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he was not suited to a career as a violinist. In 1889 Sibelius traveled to Berlin to study counterpoint, where he also was exposed to new music, particularly that of Richard Strauss. In Vienna he studied with Karl Goldmark and then Robert Fuchs, the latter said to be his most effective teacher. It was during this time that Sibelius began contemplating the creation of the Kullervo Symphony, based on the Kalevala legends. Sibelius returned to Finland, taught music, and in June 1892, married Aino Järnefelt, daughter of General Alexander Järnefelt, head of one of the most influential families in Finland.
  
The premiere of Kullervo in April 1893 created an absolute sensation and made Sibelius the foremost Finnish composer. The music that followed was also strongly national in feeling, the Karelia Suite, written for a pageant in Viipuri in 1893. So, too, was Finlandia, written six years later for another pageant portraying the history of Finland, which became a rallying-point for national sentiment at a time when Russia was tightening its grip on the country. The Lemminkäinen suite, begun in 1895 and premiered in 1896, has come to be regarded as the most important music by Sibelius up to that time. In 1897 the Finnish Senate voted to pay Sibelius a short-term pension, which some years later became a lifetime grant. The honor was in lieu of his loss of an important professorship in composition at the music school, the position going to Robert Kajanus.
  
Sibelius' First Symphony premiered in 1899 as a tremendous success, but not quite of the magnitude of that of Finlandia. In the next decade Sibelius would become an international figure in the concert world. Kajanus introduced several of the composer's works abroad and Sibelius himself was invited to Heidelberg and Berlin to conduct his music. In March 1901, the Second Symphony was received as a statement of independence for Finland, although Sibelius always discouraged attaching programmatic ideas to his music. His only concerto, for violin, came in 1903. The next year Sibelius built a villa outside of Helsinki, named "Ainola" after his wife, where he would live for his remaining 53 years. Sibelius' early compositions show the influence of the Viennese Classics, Grieg, and Tchaikovsky. The Third Symphony, however, brought a change. While others pursued more lavish orchestral means and more vivid colorings, his style became more classical, more disciplined and economical. As he himself put it, 'while others mix cocktails of various hues, I offer pure spring water'.
  
In 1909 he underwent specialist treatment in Helsinki and Berlin for suspected throat cancer. The specter of illness seemed to contribute to the austerity, depth, and focus of such works as the Fourth Symphony and The Bard. For tautness and concentration the Fourth Symphony surpassed all that had gone before. It baffled its first audiences and was declared ultra-modern. In Sweden it was actually hissed. Elsewhere, Sibelius's reputation continued to grow. Sibelius made frequent trips to England, and in 1914 he traveled to Norfolk, CT, where he conducted his newest work The Oceanides. Sibelius spent the war years in Finland working on his Fifth Symphony. Sibelius traveled to England for the last time in 1921.
  
For more than 30 years after the completion of his four last great works-the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, music for The Tempest, and Tapiola-Sibelius lived in retirement at Järvenpää, maintaining virtual silence until his death in 1957. Sibelius was unquestionably the greatest composer Finland has ever produced and the most significant symphonist to have emerged from Scandinavia. Sibelius' achievement in Finland is all the more remarkable in the absence of any essential indigenous musical tradition. Each of his symphonies is entirely fresh in its approach to structure, and it is impossible to foresee from the vantage point of any one the character of the next. He is able to establish within a few seconds a sound world that is entirely his own.
  
Bohuslav Martinu
Birth: December 8, 1890 in Policka, Czechoslovakia
Death: August 28, 1959 in Liestal, Switzerland
Martinu began violin lessons at age 7 and he gave his first recital when he was 15. By age 10 he had written his first compositions, including songs, piano music, symphonic poems, string quartets, and ballets. In 1906, he entered Prague Conservatory, but reading and the theater diverted Martinu from his studies, and he was finally expelled for "incorrigible negligence" in 1910. However, he continued composing. Exempted, as a teacher, from military service, Martinu produced many works during World War I. He earned his living by giving lessons and by playing in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Although his Czech Rhapsody and two ballets, Istar and Who is the Most Powerful in the World?, garnered attention, Martinu felt the need for additional training. Returning to the Conservatory, he studied composition with Josef Suk, and later in Paris with Albert Roussel, whose muscular, rhythmically vigorous music eventually influenced Martinu's own.
  
Martinu's music was well received in postwar Paris. Like many of his contemporaries, Martinu absorbed the influence of jazz, as evidenced in such works as the ballet La revue de cuisine, and the one-act opera Les larmes du couteau (The Tears of the Knife). In 1930, Martinu's continual desire to learn more led him to the music of Corelli, Vivaldi, and Bach, signaling a new regard for rhythmic continuity and contrapuntal technique. Following the resounding success of his opera Juliette in Prague in 1938, World War II forced Martinu to flee his adopted home of Paris. After spending 9 miserable months in the south of France, the composer and his wife made their way to Spain, and then to America, in the early months of 1941. For the duration of the war, Martinu lived in various cities in the Eastern U.S., surviving on commissions and producing five symphonies by 1946. Though Martinu had planned to return to Czechoslovakia after the war, injuries and health issues prevented him from traveling.
  
After Czechoslovakia fell to the communists in 1949, it gradually became clear to Martinu that he was no longer welcome in his native land, a source of great distress to him. He eventually regained his health, however, producing such works as the Sixth Symphony, two operas for television, and many chamber compositions. Martinu became an American citizen, but spent much time in Europe. In 1953 - 1955 he was based in Nice and in 1955 - 1956 he was teaching at the American Academy in Rome.
  
After a final New York sojourn he took up residence as the guest of Paul Sacher in Liestal, Switzerland, where he died in 1959. Martinu wrote in virtually every genre. Harry Halbreich's catalog of Martinu's music, to which the composer did not assign opus numbers, lists nearly 400 compositions. While he admired Dvořák and Janáček, the major influences on his music were English madrigals, Debussy, Stravinsky, jazz, and composers of the Baroque era.
  
December 15
1567 Christoph Demantius
1657 Michel-Richard Delalande
1892 David Guion
1905 Ferenc Farkas
1939 Nicolaus A. Huber
1961 Matthew H. Fields
 
December 22
1723 Karl Friedrich Abel
1821 Giovanni Bottesini
1853 Maria Teresa Carreno
1858 Giacomo Puccini
1874 Franz Schmidt
1883 Edgard Varese
1885 Deems Taylor
1900 Alan Dudley Bush
1921 Dimitris Fampas
1921 Robert Kurka
1952 Robert Kapilow
1953 David Leisner
1960 Nathan Currier
  
Giacomo Puccini
Birth: December 22, 1858 in Lucca, Italy
Death: November 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium
Apart from Verdi, Puccini was the most important composer of Italian opera. He wrote in the verismo style, a trend that featured subjects and characters from everyday life for opera. Around these often mundane settings Puccini wrapped unforgettable melodies and lush orchestration.
  
Puccini came from a long line of musicians who had lived in Lucca since the early 18th century. His father, Michele, was organist and choirmaster of the Cathedral of San Martino, director of the city's music school, and a prolific if unremarkable composer. Although he died in 1864, his widow, Albina, made sure that Giacomo continued the family's musical tradition. He took organ lessons from an uncle. At 10, he sang in local church choirs and by age 14 was freelancing as an organist at religious services. His first compositions were for organ, often incorporating operatic and folk elements.
  
By age 18, under the spell of Verdi's Aida, he decided he would study composition with a goal of writing opera. At around this time, he composed his first large-scale work, Preludio Sinfonico, for an 1877 competition. He was enrolled in the Istituto Pacini, where his graduation piece was his Messa di Gloria.  A grant from Queen Margherita combined with a generous subsidy from a wealthy cousin enabled him to continue training at the Milan Conservatory, where he studied for three years under Ponchielli and Bazzini. By the time he left he had written his first opera, Le villi, which he once more entered in a competition. Though he did not win, Arrigo Boito and, more importantly, the publisher Giulio Ricordi helped arrange a premiere in Milan. The work was enthusiastically received.
  
Around this time the composer met Elvira Gemignani, wife of a merchant in Lucca. They carried on an illicit affair, and she gave birth to his son in 1886. When her husband died in 1904, the two were married. Puccini's next opera, Edgar, was poorly received at its 1889 premiere. His next work, however, Manon Lescaut, was a sensational success at its 1893 Turin premiere. Subsequent performances in Italy and abroad bolstered the composer's growing reputation.  Financially secure, he settled at Torre del Lago, where he built his own villa (now the Villa Puccini), where he could work undisturbed. Puccini's next three operas confirmed his supremacy in Italian opera. La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly were not as immediately successful as Manon Lescaut, but in time achieved even greater acclaim. From the middle of the 20th century until today they became his most often performed and recorded works. It was not until the next decade, however, that he created his next opera, the modestly successful La fanciulla del West, which premiered in New York with Toscanini conducting and Caruso singing the role of Johnson.
  
His procrastination owed much to charges by his wife that he was having an affair with a servant girl, charges that drove the hapless and innocent young girl to suicide in 1909. In 1913, Puccini accepted a lucrative commission from a Viennese group, which resulted in La rondine. Received warmly at its 1917 Monte Carlo premiere, it faded under the opinion it was the least of his operatic efforts. Puccini followed this setback with his trilogy of one-act operas, Il trittico - comprised of Il tabarro, Suor Angelica, and Gianni Schicchi - all premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1918. While Puccini was working on his last opera, Turandot, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. During radiation treatment in Brussels, he suffered a heart attack and died.
  
Edgard Varese
Birth: December 22, 1883 in Paris, France
Death: November 6, 1965 in New York, NY
Varèse spent his early childhood in Paris and Burgundy. His father wanted him to study math and engineering in preparation for a career in business. However, Varèse pursued music, studying at the Schola Cantorum with Albert Roussel and Vincent d'Indy and at the Paris Conservatoire with Charles Marie Widor. Between 1908 - 1915, he divided his time between Paris - where he got to know Debussy, Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Jean Cocteau - and Berlin, where he became acquainted with Busoni, Strauss, and the music of Schoenberg.
  
Unable to find regular work, Varèse moved to the United States in 1915, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1926. With the exception of a single song, Un grand sommeil noir, all the music Varèse wrote before his emigration has been lost. His output effectively begins with Amériques, scored for an enormous orchestra and celebrating not only a new homeland but also new worlds of the imagination. Though influenced by Debussy, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, the work is original in its perpetually evolving form, its rhythmic complexity, and its massive eruptions of sound. It is also marked by Varèse's love for the speed and sounds of modern city life. In all these respects Amériques contained the seeds for the more polished works that followed: Hyperprism and Intégrales both for a small orchestra of wind and percussion, Octandre for seven wind and double bass, Arcana for orchestra, and Ionisation for 13 percussionists. His feeling for the primitive and magical is uppermost in Ecuatorial, setting a Mayan curse for bass voice and small orchestra. In addition to composing, Varèse promoted new music through the establishment of his New Symphony Orchestra in 1919, the International Composers' Guild in 1921, and the Pan American Society in 1926.
  
He continued to have difficulty making money, though, and spent some time as a piano salesman. He also made a brief appearance in a 1918 John Barrymore film. Varèse maintained his connection with Europe, and had an extended stay in Paris between 1928 - 1933 during which he continued his sonic explorations and heard many of his works performed.  Back in New York, Varèse advocated for new electronic means as necessary to the music of the future. The anonymous gift of an Ampex tape recorder in 1953 was the motivation Varèse needed and the result was heard in Déserts and Poème électronique. Varèse and his music received much attention in the 1960s. His works were widely performed, recorded and published, and he received honors from the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Royal Swedish Academy. He also won the first Koussevitzky International Recording Award in 1963.
  
Despite his output of only slightly more than a dozen compositions, Varèse is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. His concept of "organized sound" led to many experiments in form and texture. He was constantly searching for new sound sources - working throughout his life with engineers, scientists and instrument builders - and was one of the first to extensively explore percussion, electronics, and taped sounds.
  
December 29
1850 Tomas Bretón
1865 Eleodoro Ortiz de Zarate
1876 Pablo Casals
1898 Jules Bledsoe
1912 Peggy Glanville Hicks
1938 Bart Berman

 
 
  

SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
 

Your "Lyric Theater" Program
with Keith Brown
Sunday, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm
 
Programming Selections for the 
Months of Nov/Dec, 2016

 


SUNDAY NOVEMBER 6TH Vivaldi, Il Farnace
We commonly think of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) as the violin virtuoso who composed "The Four Seasons" concertos and so many other instrumental works. In actuality wwuh913, "The Red Priest" was primarily a composer of opera. At least twenty of his operas survive in more-or-less complete score, and among his manuscripts, preserved in the Italian National Library in Turin, are large fragments of others, totaling perhaps forty nine lyric stageworks. Among the piles of manuscripts in Turin's Vivaldi archive is the autograph of Farnace (1727), regarded as Vivaldi's personal favorite. Vivaldi meticulously reworked his music for Farnace  at least six times for productions in various cities. Copies of this opera exist in Madrid and elsewhere in Europe. Farnace was a hit wherever it was performed. One of its arias contains a theme from the "Winter" concerto of "The Four Seasons." Earlier in the twenty first century the French label Naïve/Opus 111 drew upon the Turin manuscript collection for a series of recordings of the Vivaldi operas. I broadcast as many of those recordings as we received into our station's record library. Farnace I presented on Sunday, June 20, 2010. This was the 1731 Pavia revision of the opera, with Jordi Savall directing Le Concert des Nations period instrumental ensemble. The 1738 Ferrara version has been recently recorded for the Italian Dynamic label. Dynamic gives the title of the opera with the definite article as Il Farnace. The dramma per musica was staged in May, 2013 at the Teatro Communale of Florence. A specialist in baroque opera, Federico Sardelli conducted the Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, who play on modern instruments, but employ historically informed performance practice. The singers are accomplished in baroque vocalization technique. Mezzo Mary Ellen Nesi took on the title role, which was originally meant for a male castrato. She portrays Pharnaces, the king of Pontus in Asia Minor, who defied Roman domination and was defeated by Pompey in battle. Dynamic released Il Farnace on two compact discs in 2015.

 

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13TH PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game.
    
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20TH Shakespeare, Hamlet 
Spoken word presentations have always been part of my broad spectrum concept of lyric theater programming. I have broadcast recordings of many of the plays of William Shakespeare. Often these were on old 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 the Bard, issued to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. It was an audio project of historic significance equal to Decca's first-ever complete stereo recording series of Wagner's Ring cycle 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, were reissued on compact disc to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the playwright's death. I have acquired the 100 CD boxed set and this Sunday I begin to broadcast the plays contained therein. First before any others, I present the world's most famous play, Hamlet,Prince of Denmark (1600). I have broadcast Hamlet once before on Sunday, January 18, 1987, but not using those old Decca LP's. Columbia Masterworks issued its own Hamlet on four stereo LP's in 1964, also in celebration of the quadri-centennary of Shakespeare's birth. Hamlet was staged on Broadway in that year, as directed by John Gielgud with a cast of mostly American actors. Starring in this production was Richard Burton. He was an absolutely convincing and compelling Hamlet, one of the greats in the role. The Prince of Denmark in Decca's audio-production is Anthony White.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 27TH Britten, Paul Bunyan Here's a piece of musical Americana, written by a British composer, that's appropriate for broadcast around the time of the American harvest home holiday. Paul Bunyan (1941) was Benjamin Britten's first opera. It could be styled an operetta because of the popular nature of so many of its musical numbers and because it has passages of spoken dialog. Britten originally tailored it for an amateur cast of high school level talent while he was staying in New York City. (Other composers tried their hand at such works during the WPA era.) It turned into an "Opera for Broadway" that the critics and public alike misunderstood from the get-go. Its first run was essentially a failure. Late in his life Britten revised it for performance at the 1974 Aldeburgh Festival in England. Paul Bunyan remains, nevertheless, an American lyric theaterwork. England's greatest composer of the twentieth century appreciated the mythic significance of the giant lumberjack. The soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Plymouth Music Series have done full justice to Britten's American opera. They hail from Minnesota and draw directly on the Midwestern pioneering traditions in their spirited recorded performance. Philip Brunelle directs the entire ensemble. The UK label Virgin Classics issued Paul Bunyan in 1988 on two compact discs. I last broadcast Paul Bunyan on Sunday, May 28,1989. Please note: this broadcast might be preempted on short notice, or it may come in a shorter-than-usual timeslot and the presentation might not begin at the usual one o'clock starting time.      
 
SUNDAY DECEMBER 4TH PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game.  
  
SUNDAY DECEMBER 11TH Beethoven, Fidelio Ludwig van Beethoven's one and only opera Fidelio (1814) is well represented in the discography. I have presented several historic recordings of it over the years, notably the 1961 Covent Garden production directed by Otto Klemperer and starring soprano Sena Jurinac and tenor Jon Vickers, as aired on Testament CD's (Sunday, June 9, 2013) and Karl Bohm's interpretation of Fidelio as produced at the Met in 1960, with the incomparable Birgit Nilsson as Leonore, opposite Vickers as Florestan. Tapes in the Met's archives were picked up for issue on Sony CD's. That historic Fidelio I presented on Sunday, September 25, 2011. The esteemed conductor Sir Charles Mackerras is now deceased, so maybe that makes the Telarc CD release of his Fidelio in historically informed musical practice of historic interest in itself. That recording featured Czech soprano Gabriela Benackova and British tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson, backed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus. The Mackerras Fidelio went over the air on Sunday, October 18, 1998. Also historically informed are the reconstructions of Beethoven's earlier version of the opera from 1804, which he titled Leonore after the heroine. Two different recordings of Leonore I aired on two different Sundays, first in December of 1994, then in September of 2005. The standard Fidelio was mounted at Glyndebourne in 2006. A live-in- performance recording of it I broadcast on Sunday, November 15, 2009. It's high time for a more contemporary take on Beethoven's "rescue opera." There was a production of Fidelio at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland in the Summer of 2010.  It was duly recorded for Decca, again live in performance, with soprano Nina Stemme as Leonore and Germany's star tenor of our time Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan. Claudio Abbado conducts the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Arnold Schoenberg Choir.    
   
SUNDAY DECEMBER 18TH Matheson, Das grosste Kind, Pigs Could Fly  People say the Christmas holiday season is meant for the children. Indeed, the central iconic figure of the holiday is the Christ Child. I have never before broadcast any of the recorded music of Johann Mattheson (1681-1764). He was important to the musical life of Hamburg, where he held the coveted post of cantor at the Lutheran cathedral of the city. He wrote a vast amount of church music. Mattheson was called upon to compose cantatas, oratorios and choral works to mark the major feast days observed at the cathedral. For Christmas of 1720 he wrote an oratorio about the baby Jesus, Das grosste Kind or "The Greatest Child." His scoring for the Christmas oratorio was lavish in its day: an orchestra with all the usual strings, flute, a pair of oboes, bassoon, pairs of trumpets and horns with timpani drums, plus harpsichord continuo. Eight skilled opera singers were brought in from Hamburg's Goosemarket Theater opera company. They sang the solo roles and combined their voices as a chorus. Mattheson's score incorporates the traditional German In dolce jubilo chorale tune set to new words. The oratorio concludes with a halleluyah chorus of wellnigh Handelian grandeur. The German cpo label began issuing world premiere recordings of Mattheson's music shortly after manuscripts of his missing since 1945 were rediscovered in 1998. Das grosste Kind was issued on a single cpo compact disc in 2009. Michael Alexander Willens directs the period instrument players of the Cologne Academy. Keep listening for more Christmas music. Thinking again of the children, you will hear tracks from the Naxos CD compilation Pigs Can Fly. Ronald Corp leads the New London Children's Chorus in choral compositions intended for performance by prepubertal voices.
  
SUNDAY DECEMBER 25TH Handel, Messiah This most famous of all oratorios is the obvious choice for broadcast on Christmas Day. Messiah has a long association with Christmas holiday musicmaking. Listening to it has surely become a holiday tradition. I have broadcast Messiah many times over three decades and more of Christmas seasons, using many different recordings, all of them in historically informed performance practice and most of them employing period instruments. This Christmas you get to hear a very traditional recorded performance with a modern symphony orchestra. Sir Thomas Beecham recorded Messiah in early stereo sound in 1959 leading his own Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. The orchestration for modern instruments is officially attributed to Sir Eugene Goosens (1893-1962), an English conductor and composer who was a contemporary and colleague of Beecham. Beecham commissioned Goosens for the task, but he himself would certainly have had a hand in the alterations made to Handel's score. Even way back then Sir Thomas was aware of what historically informed performance practice would entail. He refers to the concept in the essay he wrote for the printed material that comes with the deluxe RCA Victor original issue of Messiah on four LP's. We have the original boxed set in our WWUH classical music record library. Beecham wanted the public to hear everything that Handel had composed for Messiah, so on side eight of the last LP was a recorded appendix of numbers that traditionally had been cut from the score in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These additional tracks were retained in the 1992 BMG Classics reissue of the Beecham Messiah on three compact discs. The four vocal soloists Beecham brought together for the studio tapings were all eminent opera singers of their day: soprano Jennifer Vyvyan, mezzo Monica Sinclair, tenor Jon Vickers and bass Giorgio Tozzi. If you're a purist in these matters, you may pooh-pooh the old school Beecham Messiah, but Beecham manages to bring out the passion inherent in Handel's inspired music, and he inspired all the singers and players in this recording to give it everything they've got. Beecham drives things forward with dramatic intensity. He gives us awesome massed climaxes. So I cry HALLELUYAH!!! For Beecham's marvelous yet dated interpretation.   
    
    Most of the recordings featured in this two month period of programming come out of my own collection of opera and oratorio on silver disc: Vivaldi's Il Farnace, Shakespeare's Hamlet, "The Greatest Child" Christmas oratorio and the Beecham Messiah CD reissue. The two other items, Britten's Paul Bunyan and Beethoven's Fidelio are in our WWUH record library. At the end of my thirty fourth year of lyric theater broadcasting I remember people who cooperated with me in some capacity in this past year 2016. I think of my radio colleagues David Schonfeld and our classical music genre director Steve Petke. I must thank them both. Then there's our station's operations director Kevin O'Toole, whom I must always thank for mentoring me in the preparation of these program 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

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.
 
For further information:


 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 .

Manchester Symphony Orchestra
  
 
Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale


 The Beth El Temple
  
 
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) 2015-1016 Season
with Cantor Joseph Ness, conductor
 
Broadway & Friends Concert   
Sunday, November 6, 2016    7pm
 
The Asian Influence 
Sunday, December 4, 2016    7pm
(6 pm pre-concert lecture with Professor Michael Lestz, Trinity College, "And what remains? The Jewish Refugees of Shanghai, 1938 to 1945"
 
Neshama Carlebach   
Friday & Saturday, February 10 - 11, 2017    Services
 
Music University Lectures: The History of Cantorial Music
FREE and open to the public  
Wednesdays: February 22, March 1 & March 8, 2017    7pm
 
Musical Services with Cantor Jackie Mendelson   
FREE and open to the public 
Friday, March 10, 2017    Services 
 
Giacomo Gates Jazz Cabaret   
Sunday, April 2, 2017    7pm
 
What's the Score Symphony Concert   
Sunday, June 11, 2017    7pm
 
Open to the Public. Plenty of FREE Parking.
Beth El Temple
2626 Albany Ave, West Hartford, CT 06117
Phone: (860) 233-9696



How To Listen To WWUH
Come as You Are... Tune in However Works Best for You
  
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 these stations:
WAPJ, 89.9 & 105.1, Torrington, CT
WDJW, 89.7, Somers, CT
WWEB, 89.9, Wallingford, CT 
You can also listen on line using your PC, tablet or smart device.  Our MP3 stream is  here.

We also recommend that you download the free app "tunein" 
here to your mobile device.   


  
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