Washington’s Birthday
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It’s Washington’s Birthday, the last day of our American Music Festival, but not the last day you’ll hear American composers. Far from it! Tonight’s group ranges from Antheil to Woods...
We begin with the short Stephen Foster tune “The Old Pine Tree,” flutist Paula Robison accompanied by pianist Krista Bennion Feeney. The Dennis Russell Davies conducts “Quiet City,” that wonderful Aaron Copland standby. A bit later we hear Morton Gould conducting the London Symphony in his own “Latin American Symphonette.” The 1941 four-movement work was written for use in a series of radio concerts that Gould was conducting, and uses rhumba, tango, guaracha, and conga idioms. Incidentally, Gould died nine years ago yesterday, 2/21/96. The “W” in our “A”—“W” lineup is Phil Woods, whose “Three Improvisations” are brought to us by the New York Saxophone Quartet.
According to Alan Rich, in a 1987 “Newsweek” review, ‘La Monte Young's “The Well-Tuned Piano” is an enthralling marathon a non-stop performance at once wacko and visionary. . . . Hear it simply for what it is: hypnotic, mysterious sound glistening with its own disembodied beauty. Its five hours seem remarkably short.” You are only going to hear maybe half an hour, but you won’t want to miss it.
Hour three features two concertos, Lou Harrison’s for pipa plus Lowell Liebermann’s for flute and harp. Our last hour begins with the “A” composer, “A” as in George Antheil, music’s bad boy whose “A Jazz Symphony” rocks in this Michael Tilson Thomas and New World Symphony version with Michael Linville on piano and Mark J. Inouye on trumpet. Then we abandon our American friends for many a listener’s all-time favorite, J.S. Bach. Marni Nixon, the soprano who is featured in Cantata No. 198 (“Mourning Ode”), was born this day in 1930. She is joined by several other soloists as Robert Craft conducts the Columbia Symphony.
We begin with the short Stephen Foster tune “The Old Pine Tree,” flutist Paula Robison accompanied by pianist Krista Bennion Feeney. The Dennis Russell Davies conducts “Quiet City,” that wonderful Aaron Copland standby. A bit later we hear Morton Gould conducting the London Symphony in his own “Latin American Symphonette.” The 1941 four-movement work was written for use in a series of radio concerts that Gould was conducting, and uses rhumba, tango, guaracha, and conga idioms. Incidentally, Gould died nine years ago yesterday, 2/21/96. The “W” in our “A”—“W” lineup is Phil Woods, whose “Three Improvisations” are brought to us by the New York Saxophone Quartet.
According to Alan Rich, in a 1987 “Newsweek” review, ‘La Monte Young's “The Well-Tuned Piano” is an enthralling marathon a non-stop performance at once wacko and visionary. . . . Hear it simply for what it is: hypnotic, mysterious sound glistening with its own disembodied beauty. Its five hours seem remarkably short.” You are only going to hear maybe half an hour, but you won’t want to miss it.
Hour three features two concertos, Lou Harrison’s for pipa plus Lowell Liebermann’s for flute and harp. Our last hour begins with the “A” composer, “A” as in George Antheil, music’s bad boy whose “A Jazz Symphony” rocks in this Michael Tilson Thomas and New World Symphony version with Michael Linville on piano and Mark J. Inouye on trumpet. Then we abandon our American friends for many a listener’s all-time favorite, J.S. Bach. Marni Nixon, the soprano who is featured in Cantata No. 198 (“Mourning Ode”), was born this day in 1930. She is joined by several other soloists as Robert Craft conducts the Columbia Symphony.
