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Welcome to the new format for WWUH's bi-monthly program guide, designed to help you get even more enjoyment from your listening experience! Read more about what's coming up this month, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for even more updates.
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Fall Fundraiser a Huge Success!
The recently completed Fall Fund Drive was a complete success! We surpassed our $35,000 goal by several thousand dollars thanks to the generosity of those listeners who pledged during the week long event. This was the last pledge drive of the year and its success means that the station will remain in the black for the rest of the year and beyond.
Pledge reminders have already gone out. If you pledged for one of our premiums we will mail that to you as soon as we receive your pledge payment. Due to high demand our special 45th anniversary travel mug is back-ordered; we expect to ship those the week of 11/21.
The fact that WWUH continues to thrive in the age of Pandora and other "digital media" is a testament to the quality of programming produced by our all-volunteer staff. Listeners clearly still prefer live and local programming.
So on behalf of the entire staff let me say "Thank You" to each and every one of you who pledged during the Fall Drive. If you haven't had a chance to pledge yet you can do so via our secure online site http://wwuhpledge.org.
John Ramsey
General Manager
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Hartford Hawks
| |  Hartford Hawks Return to WWUH Radio Starting November 9th, with an exciting season opener against the UConn Huskies at 4 pm, the Hartford Hawks basketball team will once again be featured live on WWUH. For the full broadcast schedule of upcoming games, |
 Celtic Airs
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Upcoming Concert: Comas
It seems like forever since I last presented a Celtic Airs concert, though actually it was only 3+ months ago (The Paul McKenna Band; a wonderful show on 7/20/13). Finally, there's another show on the horizon, and it's going to be a good one; Comas on 11/12/13. They debuted here on 6/29/12. Once the new year starts, we'll get "back in the groove" so to speak with concerts featuring The Karan Casey Band on 2/28/14,
The Masters of Tradition (Martin Hayes, Dennis Cahill, Iarla O'Lionaird, David Power, Mairtin O'Connor, Cathal Hayden and Seamie O'Dowd) 3/22/14(in the Lincoln Theater!!), the return ofthe Teetotalers (Kevin Crawford, John Doyle, Martin Hayes) on 4/12/14
and Irish folk icon Andy Irvine on 6/6/14.
Comas means "power" in Irish, and power is exactly what this band is all about!! They play with driving power, tempered by a fine sensitivity for the inner magic at the core of Irish traditional music. The band formed in 2003, composed of four talented musicians from diverse musical backgrounds, residing in different parts of the world. They found their approach to the music was similar and were able to combine their many cultural influences into a blend of Irish traditional music that grabbed the attention of festival organizers and promoters, putting them in great demand almost from day one of their existence. When the band played here on 6/29/12, they were without fiddler Aidan Burke of Ireland due to last minute visa problems. These issues have been resolved permitting us to experience the full Comas lie up this time around. Aidan began playing bodhran at the tender age of 2 and was step dancing by 5. First cousin Kevin Burke introduced him to the fiddle at age 8 and that has become his principal instrument for the last 30 years. He still plays bodhran at times, and when the opportunity presents itself, he also shows proficiency on guitar, mandolin and banjo! Over the years, he has won over 20 first place titles at the All Ireland and All Breton fleadhs. Philip Masure resides in Belgium. In addition to his previous appearance here with Comas, he also appeared in a trio with David Munnelly and Helen Flaherty on 4/11/08. Philip plays guitar, cittern and bouzouki and is also a fine singer. He's also well versed in Flemish folk music and leads the Belgian folk band Floes. Jackie Moran was born in Tipperary and moved to Chicago in early childhood. By the tender age of 10, he was already playing bodhran with musicians far older than he in the vibrant Chicago Irish music scene. He became a founding member of the band Bua who appeared here on 11/4/08 and 7/3/09. He has also performed with Riverdance and the Trinity Irish Dance Company. The final member of the quartet is the amazing Isaac Alderson, born and raised in Chicago and as equally involved in it's music culture as Jackie Moran. Isaac now resides in New York City where he helped found a highly acclaimed new Irish traditional band called The Yanks with Dylan Foley, Dan Gurney and Sean Earnest. At the 2002 All Ireland Fleadh in Listowel, Isaac pulled off a rare trifecta of All Ireland Senior Champion titles, the only American to have ever done so!! In addition to being the first American to ever win the Senior Championship on uillean pipes and on flute, he became the first since Joanie Madden to win the Senior Championship on tin whistle. Comas is a band firmly rooted in Irish traditional music, but with enough musical space to accommodate some original compositions. They integrate these new influences while keeping a respectful eye on the past. I hope you'll re-establish your roots with the Celtic Airs Concert Series or perhaps become one of our newest devotees!" "Try it, you'll like it" as the old commercial said!! (that's dating me, isn't it ....... and you too if you remember that line!!) Tickets for our concerts go on sale 2 months before the event date and are only available from the University of Hartford box office, open 10:00AM to 6:00PM Monday through Friday. Call 1-800-274-8587 or 860-768-4228, OR purchase online at Tune into Celtic Airs every Tuesday, 6:00-9:00 AM for great music and concert updates. Thanks so much for your support. Steve Dieterich, Producer/ host of Celtic Airs And promoter of the Celtic Airs Concert Series |
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Ambience News
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 The Times, They Are a Changin'
Actually,
the 'Times' are about the only thing NOT changing in Ambience. Since 'Planet' Dave DeMaw left us two years ago, Ambience has been reduced by a voice. Recently, Dave 'Cyrious' Cyr announced that he was leaving for the climates of Arizona. Larry took a break following surgery ("everything is healing nicely"), which left a month of Mark Time-styled Ambience.
We will resume with a new sort of rotation schedule that pretty much revolves around..........you guessed it, Mark Time! Larry & Faith will still cover the last Sunday of the month. Mark's daughter, the young, apprenticing Time-Clock (more on HER another Time), has renewed interest in becoming a WWUH member at large. There are other, interesting voices which may appear from 'Time-to-Time', but in the meanTime, Mark promises to keep the Ambience Universe afloat, while nurturing many different styles of Ambience each week.
It's not really ALL about Time!
Listen to Ambience, Sunday mornings from 9am to 1pm.
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WWUH Classical Programming - November/December 2013
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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
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November
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Fri
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1
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Reich: Electric Counterpoint; Hatzis: String Quartet No. 1; Catoire: Piano Trio in F minor; Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 11 in F major; Faure: Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major; Milhaud: String Quartet No. 12. (William Mackey, host.)
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Sun
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3
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Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem; Delius: Requiem
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Mon
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4
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Charles Ives Birthday Rescheduled... Morton Gould conducts Charles Ives; Ives: Piano Sonata #2 "Concord, Mass. 1840-1869" Kirkpatrick Edition; Cowell: Hymn and Fuguing Tunes
Drake's Village Brass Band - Meridian Arts Ensemble: Brink
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Tue
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5
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Adalbert Gyrowetz: String Quartet Op. 29, No. 2 in G major; Arnold Schoenberg: Violin Concerto (1936); Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; George Lloyd: Symphony No. 12
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Wed
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6
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Johannes Frohlich: Symphony, Op. 33; Ernst Eichner: Sinfonia in C; Cipriano de Rore: Missa Praeter Rerum;
Giulio Regondi: Twelve Etudes; Faure: Piano Quintet No. 1
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Thu
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7
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Brull: Piano Concerto #1 in F Op 10; Lincke: Lysistrata - Gl�hwurmchen-Idyll; William Alwyn: Fantasy-Sonata for Flute and Harp "Naiades", Elizabethan Dances, Sinfonietta for Strings; Manneke: Psalm 121;
Classical Happy Hour Franck: Symphony in d; Corelli: Concerto grosso Op 6 #4 in D.
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Fri
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8
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Two takes on The Soldier's Tale
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Sun
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10
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Wagner: Tannhauser
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Mon
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11
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Lutoslawski: Symphonies #3 & 4; Music of Penderecki and Panufnik
Drake's Village Brass Band - American Brass Quintet - Premier!
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Tue
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12
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Magnard: Symphony #3; Reicha: String Quartet in G, Op. 48, #2; Tchaikovsky: Symphony #2; Charpentier: Miserere
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Wed
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13
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Hermann Goetz: Symphony No. 9; Henri Duparc: Songs; Paderewski: Piano Sonata in E Flat Minor;
Ellen Taafe Zwilich: Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra; Domenico Alberti: Sonatas
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Thu
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14
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L. Mozart: Horn Concerto, Trumpet Concerto in D; Spontini: La Vestale - O nume tutelary; Hummel: Piano Quintet in E flat Op 87, Trumpet Concerto in E; Mendelssohn-Hensel: Overture; Copland: An Outdoor Overture, The Tender Land Suite, Rodeo - Hoe Down.
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Fri
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15
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Classical Conversations with Kaleidos Duo including live performance
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Sun
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17
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Vivaldi: Catone In Utica
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Mon
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18
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Birthday Centenaries - Moross: Symphony #1, The War Lord; Dello Joio: Fantasy on Themes of Haydn;
Music of Henry Brandt, Kent Kennan, Peggy Stuart Coolidge
Drake's Village Brass Band - New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble: Live from Jordan Hall
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Tue
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19
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Holmboe: Concerto for Viola; Taneyev: String Quartet #7; Schubert: Symphony #4; Dvoř�k: Te Deum
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Wed
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20
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Rimsky-Korakov: Symphony No. 2, "Antar"; Philippe Rogier: Missa Philippus II; Cesare Negri: Dances;
Jean-Ferey Rebel: Violin Sonatas; Leopold Godowsky: Passacaglia; Kazimierz Serocki: Trombone Concerto
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Thu
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21
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New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library.
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Fri
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22
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Remembering JFK - 50 Years Later
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Sun
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24
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Handel: Alexander's Feast, Ode For St. Cecilia's Day
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Mon
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25
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Benjamin Britten, Composer, Conductor and Performer
Drake's Village Brass Band - U. S. Marine Band Plays Wagner
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Tue
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26
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Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Britten: Violin Concerto (1939) and other works
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Wed
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27
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Dvorak: Symphony No. 9, From the New World;
Johan Soderman: Sacred Songs; Luis Venegas de Henestrosa: A Manera de Danca; Jan Ladislav Dussek: Sonata in C Minor; Georg Druschetzky: Oboe Quartet in E Flat Major; Wlodek Gulgowski: Piano Pieces
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Thu
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28
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Lully: Phaeton - Suite, Dies Irae; Ries: Piano Concerto # 3 in c sharp Op 55, Sonata for Horn and Piano in F Op 34; Anton Rubinstein: Piano Concerto #4 Op 70, Violin Concerto; Drdla: Traumerei Op 21; Knaifel: Psalm 51.
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Fri
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29
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Music to celebrate Chanukah
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December
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Sun
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1
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Bach: Mass in B Minor
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Mon
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2
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1913 Revisited Volume 1 - Debussy: Jeux; Bartok: Two Pictures; Herbert: Sweethearts; R. Strauss: Elektra
Drake's Village Brass Band - R. Strauss: Horn Concertos with Dennis Brain
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Tue
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3
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Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Hindemith: Violin Concerto (1939) and other works
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Wed
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4
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Alexander Grechaninov: Symphony No. 1; Guillaume Dufay: Missa Sancti Jacobi; Andrea Zani: Violin Concerto in G Minor; Philipp Erlebach: Ouverture V;
Louis-Ferdinand Herold: Piano Concerto No. 3
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Thu
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5
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Geminiani: Concerti Grossi; Novak: Moravian-Slovak Suite Op 32, Piano Sonata Op 24 "Eroica"; Gismonti: Agua e Vinho, Palha�o; Golijov: Kuai Le, Rocketeyka; Garrop: Silver Dagger; Classical Happy Hour Schubert: Symphony #3; Dvor�k: Waltzes for String Quartet Op 54; Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn.
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Fri
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6
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Remembering Dave Brubeck
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Sun
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8
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Preempted
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Mon
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9
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Morton Gould Birthday Centenary - Gould: Showpiece, Piano Concerto, String Music; Gould On Record: Selections of Gould recordings not reissued on CD.
Drake's Village Brass Band - Black Dyke Band Plays Verdi
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Tue
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10
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Shostakovich: Symphony #1; Dvoř�k: Cypresses; Schubert: Rondo in A, D. 438; Vierne: Organ Symphony #1
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Wed
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11
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Luka Sorkocevic: Symphonies; Johan Halvorsen: Symphony No. 1; Carlo Gesualdo: Responseries; Carlos Guastavino: Songs; Flor Alpaerts: James Ensor Suites; Joan Ambrosia Dalza: Lute Music
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Thu
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12
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Atterberg: Suite #3, Symphony #6 in C Op 31 "Dollar"; Canning: Fantasy on a Hymn Tune by Justin Morgan; Bate: Piano Concerto #3, Sinfonietta #1; Coleman: Deep Woods; Bortkiewicz: Preludes Op 33.
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Fri
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13
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Classical Conversations with the Asylum Saxophone Quartet including live performance
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Sun
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15
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Elgar: The Starlight Express
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Mon
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16
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1913 Revisited Volume 2 - Stravinsky: The Rite of Sprin; Falla: La Vida Breve; Elgar: Falstaff;
Rachmaninoff: The Bells
Drake's Village Brass Band - Heroic Music for Brass, Organ and Percussion Played by New England Brass Ensemble, E. Power Biggs Organ
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Tue
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17
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Boccherini: Cello Concerto #9; Schulhoff: Duo for Violin & Cello; Schubert: Symphony #5; Holst: First Choral Symphony
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Wed
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18
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Scriabin: Symphony No. 1; Pietro Allori: Sacred Songs; Lorenzo Gaetano Zavateri: Concerti; Pieter Hellendaal: Concerto No. 1; Heinrich von Herzogenberg; String Trio, Op. 27 No. 1
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Thu
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19
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Atterberg: Suite #3, Symphony #6 in C Op 31 "Dollar"; Canning: Fantasy on a Hymn Tune by Justin Morgan; Bate: Piano Concerto #3, Sinfonietta #1; Coleman: Deep Woods; Bortkiewicz: Preludes Op 33.
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Fri
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20
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Winter comes tomorrow at 12:11 pm EST
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Sun
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22
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Preempted
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Mon
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23
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Host's Choice
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Tue
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24
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Druschetzky: Oboe Quartet; Alwyn: Symphony #2; Schubert: Violin Sonata in A, D. 574; Britten: A Ceremony of Carols
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Wed
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25
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Host's Choice
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Thu
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26
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Rosier: Suite for 3 Violins; Pisendel: Sonata for Violin Solo in a, Violin Sonata in D, Concerto for 2 Oboes and Bassoon in E flat, Violin Concerto in D; Holsinger: To Tame the Perilous Skies; Wilson: I Sleep at Waking; Verdi: Il trovatore - Ballet Music; Schubert: Impromptus D 899; Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.
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Fri
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27
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Some of our favorite recordings received in 2013
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Sun
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29
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Preempted
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Mon
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30
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Host's Choice
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Tue
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31
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Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Alfredo Casella: Violin Concerto (1928); New releases and new acquisitions
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Composer Birthdays | |
Thursday Evening Classics - Composer Birthdays for November and December
November 7
1710 Michel'angelo Vella
1810 Ferenc (Franz) Erkel
1839 Hermann Levi
1846 Ignaz Brull
1847 Will Lamartine Thompson
1866 Paul Lincke
1877 Henry Balfour Gardiner
1905 William Alwyn
1939 Daan Manneke
1944 Christina Viola Oorebeek
1944 James Dashow
1949 Steven Stucky
1953 Ken Hedgecock
November 14
1663 Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow
1719 Leopold Mozart
1774 Gasparo Luigi Spontini
1778 Johann Nepomuk Hummel
1804 Heinrich Ludwig Egmont Dorn
1805 Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
1845 Johann Ernst Perabo
1857 Rosalind Ellicott
1900 Aaron Copland
1932 Raymon Zupko
1948 William Averitt
1951 Jacob Ter Veldhuis
1960 Piet Werts
November 21
1772 Josef Triebensee
1852 Francisco Tarrega
1877 Louis Campbell-Tipton
1877 Sigfrid Karg-Elert
1931 Malcolm Williamson
1932 Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen
1949 Judith Shatin
1955 Kyle Gann
1956 Michelle Ekizian
1960 Stewart Wallace
November 28
1632 (29th?) Jean-Baptiste Lully
1784 (bapt) Ferdinand Ries
1829 Anton Rubinstein
1868 Frantisek (Franz) Drdla
1883 Paul Hastings Allen
1925 Aurelio de la Vega
1943 Alexander Knaifel
1948 Murray Houllif
1949 Alexander Godunov
December 5
1687 (bapt) Francesco Geminiani
1697 Giuseppe de Majo [di Maio]
1852 Thomas Linnemann Laub
1870 Vitezslav Novak
1901 Hanns [Johann] Jelinek
1919 Elliot Weisgarber
1940 Heidi Baader-Nobs
1947 Egberto Gismonti
1949 Russi Tarmakov
1960 Osvaldo Golijov
1969 Stacy Garrop
December 12
1852 Andrey Schulz-Evler
1887 Kurt Atterberg
1907 Roy Douglas
1911 Thomas Canning
1911 Stanley Richard Bate
1924 Nevit Kodallı
1934 Gheorghe Costinescu
1938 Joel Chadabe
1943 Mich�le Reverdy
1968 Charles Coleman
1970 David Horne
1971 Jason Wingate
1978 Evren Genis
December 19
1676 Louis Nicholas Clerambault
1745 Giuseppe Giordani
1802 John Ella
1825 George Frederick Bristow
1864 Adolf Sandberger
1879 Louis Vuillemin
1879 Otto Olsson
1882 Walter Braunfels
1894 Paul Dessau
1917 Hans Federico Neuman
1937 Osvaldas Balakauskas
1937 Milcho Leviev
1939 William Ryden
1943 Faradj Karayev
1947 Jean-Louis Florentz
1951 John Buckley
1955 Ron Kuivila
December 26
1640 Carl [Charles] (de) Rosier
1687 Johann Georg Pisendel
1762 Franz Wilhelm Tausch
1805 Joseph-L�on Gatayes
1808 Albert Grisar
1826 Frans [Franciscus Hendricus] Coenen
1869 Harry Newton Redman
1894 Antonio Molina
1899 Leopold Mannes
1926 Earle Brown
1940 William Foster McDaniel
1941 Wayland Rogers
1945 David Rex Holsinger
1960 Kevin Kastning
1964 Ian Wilson
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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
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Your "lyric theater" program with Keith Brown programming selections for the months of November and December 
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 3RD
Brahms, Ein Deutsches Requiem;
Delius, Requiem
Yesterday, November 2nd in the traditional
Roman Catholic Church calendar was All Souls' Day, following All Saints' Day and All Hallows' Eve. The souls of the dear departed are honored on those feast days, so a Requiem mass is called for. I have two very different musical Requiems to offer you. That warhorse of the choral repertoire Ein Deutsches Requiem (1868) is Johannes Brahms' single longest composition. He seems to have written it with his recently deceased mother in mind. Brahms assembled his own text for his "German Requiem" from passages in the Lutheran Bible. Curiously, he left out any reference to Jesus Christ. Text and music were meant to comfort the living who grieve over those they have lost. "A German Requiem" is intended for the concert hall, not Lutheran church services.
The first time I broadcast "A German Requiem" was back on Sunday, October 20, 1991, when I presented an honest-to-gosh local recording of it on non-commercial LP's. I t was recorded live in concert here in Hartford in April of 1962 in an English language version, with Fritz Mahler conducting the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and Hartford Symphony Chorale. Most recently, on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 came the original German language Requiem, with Simon Rattle directing the Berlin Philharmonic and Berlin Radio Chorus (EMI). Over the years I have aired four different recordings of the Brahms Requiem, all of them taken from our WWUH classics library. In our holdings I found yet another one on two Columbia Masterworks LP's, released in 1977. Lorin Maazel conducts the New Philharmonia Orchestra and New Philharmonia Chorus. The two vocal soloists are soprano Ileana Cotrubas and baitone Hermann Prey. Piggybacked on this Colunbia release is the Brahms Alto Rhapsody,Op. 53 (1870),a setting of Goethe's verse for contralto, male chorus and orchestra. The contralto is Yvonne Minton, backed by the men's voices of the Ambrosian Singers. Maazel directs the New Philharmonia.
The Requiem Mass for the Dead arises out of a thoroughly Christian context. By contrast, I have next for your audition a pagan requiem by Frederick Delius (1862-1934), the "English Debussy", who was an avowed unbeliever, or rather an anti-religious pantheist. Deeply saddened by the horrors of the First World War, he wrote his requiem in 1914-16 while the bloody conflict was still underway. He dedicated it "To the memory of all the young artists fallen in the war." It was first performed in London in 1922 and was neglected thereafter. The recording you will hear is only the second performance of the work. It was made live in performance in Liverpool in 1965. Sir Charles Groves directed the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Liverpool Philharmonic Choir, with vocal soloists soprano Heather Harper and baritone Thomas Hemsley. The Delius Requiem comes to us on a 1991 Intaglio compact disc release. My broadcast of this second requiem looks forward to the upcoming observance of Veterans' Day on November 11th, which was formerly called Armistice Day, the day when the Great War ended in 1918.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 10TH
Wagner, Tannhauser
Richard Wagner's early opera Tannhauser (1845) plays out a struggle within the soul of the artist between platonic or "courtly love" and fulfilled sexual desire. The hero of the story is a minnesinger , a medieval minstrel or troubadour who extols courtly love in song for the entertainment of the nobility. Noble knights also sang and played the harp in musical contests, especially the annual one held at the Wartburg castle in Germany. Tannhauser has tasted the joys of the flesh. He slept with a pagan goddess. His Christian soul is therefore placed in jeopardy. A saintly Christian maiden, however, succeeds in redeeming him through pure devotion. Wagner drastically revised this opera later in his career to make it conform to the mature style of another medieval courtly romance for the operatic stage Tristan und Isolde (1865). (Tannhauser contains no Wagnerian leitmotivs, the hallmark melodic feature of his later style.)
Way back on Sunday, June 1st, 1986 I presented an EMI recording of Tannhauser in its original Dresden version, with Bernard Haitink conducting the Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio with heldentenor Klaus Koenig in the title role. Listen to Tannhauser today in the later evolvement of its score starring tenor Robert Dean Smith. The American singer is joined by an international cast of today's operatic rising stars. Marek Janowski directs the Symphony Orchestra and Chorus of Radio Berlin.Tannhauser was recorded live in concert performance, May 5th, 2012 in the Philhermonie hall in Berlin for the German Pentatone record label. Pentatone has been releasing a series of ten of Wagner's best known operas, all recorded in broadcast from Radio Berlin. The Pentatone Wagner project is aimed at the year 2013, the bicentennial of Wagner's birth. Our station has received into the classical record collection all ten releases in this series.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 17TH
Vivaldi, Catone in Utica
My Vivaldi opera broadcast series continues this month, showcasing the latest three-CD package from the French label Opus 111 in its series "Treasures of the Piedmont," volume 55,issued just this year. This broadcast series was made possible because our station continues to receive all the newly recorded Vivaldi operas Opus 111 has brought out over the past several years. We know him today as the violin virtuoso and author of "The Four Seasons" and other concertos. Yet Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was one of the most prolific composers of Italian opera in music history.
At least twenty complete operas of his survive in manuscript or print, and he co-wrote or ghost
wrote even more, upping the total to more like thirty eight-maybe as high as sixty seven, including works in fragmentary condition. A vast bulk of Vivaldi's opera scores is preserved in the Italian National Library in Turin. The earlier, 1714 version of Orlando Furioso, broadcast on Sunday, October 13th, presented a convincing reconstruction of one of those fragmentary scores. A masterwork he penned later on in the full blossoming of his career was Catone in Utica (1737). The last two of its three acts are complete. The first act and overture are entirely missing. Vivaldi was constantly plagiarizing himself, so a lot of the missing aria numbers can be deduced from his other opera scores.
Musicologist Alessandro Ciccolini has skillfully reconstructed act one and supplied an entirely plausible opening sinfonia derived from another Vivaldi opera L'Olimpiade (1734). Ciccolini composed convincingly "period" recitative passages of his own to fill in the gaps. A renouned interpreter of baroque opera,conductor Alan Curtis, prepared the critical performing edition of Ciccolini's complete restored Catone in Utica. Curtis directs the period instrument ensemble Il Complesso Barocco, with six vocal soloists, all of them well versed in producing the florid embellishments of baroque operatic singing practice.
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 24TH
Handel, Alexander's Feast;
Ode for St. Cecilia's Day
George Frideric Handel's Alexander's Feast is just the thing to listen to at Thanksgiving time, since the oratorio describes a famous feast in classical antiquity. As originally given in London in 1736, Handel's musical setting of the poem by Dryden did not quite make a full evening's entertainment, so the composer augmented his score with an entire concerto grosso by way of an overture, and inserted two solo concertos, for organ (which Handel himself played) and harp respectively, these acting as interludes between the two long parts of the sung music, and besides that he offered his audience one of his Italian language cantatas. All of this was intended to praise St.Cecilia, the patron saint of music. (In the traditional Christian calendar the feast of St. Cecilia falls on November 21st.) In Dryden's poem it is she who pushes aside the excesses of Alexander's pagan festivities.
This Sunday will be the third time over three decades of broadcast history that I will be again presenting the excellent 1991 Collins Classics issue of Alexander's Feast on two compact discs. Conductor Harry Christophers has remained true to the original 1736 version of Handel's score. We get to hear the solo instrumental works in their proper placement, with the customary closing chorus to the words of Newburgh Hamilton, but the Italian cantata has been omitted. Christophers leads his own choral group The Sixteen, with an ensemble of period instrumentalists, not to mention vocal soloists soprano Nancy Argenta and bass Michael George. Not only did Alexander's Feast not quite make a full evening's concert, it also does not fully fill out an afternoon's lyric theater timeslot.
There's time remaining to fit in Handel's 1737 choral work Ode for Saint Cecilia's Day, also a setting of a poem by the seventeenth century English poet John Dryden. The recording I've chosen for broadcast comes from my own CD collection, and it's a thoroughly historically-informed interpretation. One of the pioneers of this historical approach to baroque music, Nikolaus Harnoncourt,conducts the period instrumental group he founded,the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, with the Bach Choir of Sweden. The two vocal soloists are English soprano Felicity Palmer and tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson. Telefunken/Teldec reissued this 1978 release in compact disc format in 1989 in its "Harnoncourt Edition" series.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 1ST
Bach, Mass in B Minor
Bach's magnum opus choral composition is a monument in the history of Western art music. It's also one of the most recorded sacred works in the classical music repertoire. Yet, there is no hard historical evidence that it was ever performed in Bach's lifetime. Certainly not in an actual liturgical context,because Bach's musical settings of the Latin text are too long for practical use in church. To be specific about the genre into which it falls,Bach's Mass in B Minor is a "parody mass." Between 1733 and 1738 Bach assembled and adapted its segments from previously composed items from his Lutheran church cantatas and separate numbers he had set of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic liturgy.
Our station has acquired the latest historically-informed recorded interpretation of the B Minor Mass. It was made in Prague at the beginning of this year for release later in 2013 through the Accent label. Vaclav Luks directs the group of Czech singers and players he organized in 2005,the Collegium 1704 period instrumentalists and the Collegium Vocale 1704. This group and its leader won international praise for their two previous recordings for Accent of the sacred choral works of the Bohemian bass viol player and composer Johann Dismas Zelenka (1679-1743). Zelenka composed in a conservative musical style very similar to that of the Cantor of Leipzig.
Musicological research reveals that Bach and Zelenka knew of each other and were familiar with each other's music and were in correspondence. There was a long existing cultural connection between Prague in Bohemia and Dresden in Saxony. As a Bohemian musician employed at the royal Saxon court in Dresden, Zelenka seems to have facilitated Bach's submission of the complete score of the Mass in B Minor to his patron, the royal Elector of Saxony. Zelenka may even have been trying to set up a performance of Bach's mass in Vienna.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 8TH
PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 15TH
Elgar, The Starlight Express;
Stravinsky,The Firebird
We know Edward Elgar (1857-1934) in his official capacity as Edwardian England's leading composer
in the national vein. "Pomp and Circumstance" springs to mind immediately,then his symphonies and concertos, and then The Dream of Gerontius and his other heavyweight oratorios. Elgar had a lighter side that expressed itself in the incidental music he wrote for The Starlight Express, an adaptation for the London stage of Algernon Blackwood's 1913 fantasy novel for juvenile readers A Prisoner of Fairyland. The image of the Starlight Express, the toy train that transports people into another dimension, particularly appealed to Elgar. Some British children experience a series of adventures on the astral plane. It all leads to the revealing of the Christmas Star. The Starlight Express was staged at Christmas, 1915 and its music remains perfect for radio broadcast at Christmastime, the season which we traditionally consider to be the special time for children and when we adults indulge ourselves in nostalgic memories of childhood. That nostalgic quality comes out in Elgar's Starlight Express music.
As adapted for a 2012 BBC Radio production, the dialog of the stageplay was replaced with dramatic narrative taken directly from Blackwood's novel. Actor Simon Callow is the storyteller in the voiceover melodrama sequences. Elgar was so inspired he wrote more music than the play required. You get to hear all of it on two Chandos compact discs. An accomplished Elgarian, Andrew Davis, conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.Elgar also wrote orchestrated songs for The Starlight Express for solo soprano and baritone. Andrew Davis orchestrated three more songs written by Clive Carey for the one-and-only 1915 theater production.
Maybe The Starlight Express will remind you of J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, with its excursion to Never-Never Land, or even the Tom Hanks movie The Polar Express. One good musical fairy tale calls for another, I say, and there's time remaining this afternoon to listen to Igor Stravinsky's famous ballet music The Firebird (1910) in a recorded version that actually tells us the story of the Russian Prince Ivan, the magic bird and the evil sorcerer Kashchey. The Russian ballerina Natalia Makarova narrates the Russian fairy tale in an English language translation that is perfectly synchronized to Stravinsky's music as performed by the Seattle Symphony under the direction of Gerard Schwarz. I last broadcast The Firebird in narrated form on Sunday ,January 5th, 1992. The 1991 Delos compact disc of The Firebird and the Chandos CD's of The Starlight Express reside in our station's classics record collection.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 22ND
PREEMPTED
SUNDAY DECEMBER 29TH
PREEMPTED
As 2013 ends I think of my colleagues at WWUH and the help they have extended to me throughout the passing year. I must thank Bob Walsh for substituting for me on certain Sundays. And I also thank our station's operations director Kevin O'Toole, who has been my mentor in preparing these opera notes for cyber-publication.
-Keith Brown
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Hartford Symphony Orchestra - Upcoming Events
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MASTERWORKS SERIES: BEETHOVEN & BERNSTEIN
November 7 - 10, 2013
Thursday 7:30pm | Friday & Saturday 8:00 p.m. | Sunday 3:00 p.m.
Belding Theater│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
POPS! SERIES: SYMPHONIC SONDHEIM - A TRIBUTE TO THE COMPOSER'S CLASSICS
Saturday, November 23, 2013| 7:30 p.m.
Mortensen Hall│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
SPECIAL EVENT: HANDEL'S MESSIAH
Saturday, December 7, 2013| 7:30 p.m.
Mortensen Hall│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
MASTERWORKS SERIES: GREENSLEEVES & SIRENA
December 12-15, 2013
Thursday 7:30pm | Friday & Saturday 8:00 p.m. | Sunday 3:00 p.m.
Belding Theater│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
POPS! SERIES: HOLIDAY CIRQUE SPECTACULAR
Saturday, December 21, 2013 | 3:00 & 7:30 p.m.
Mortensen Hall│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
MASTERWORKS SERIES: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
January 9-12, 2014
Thursday 7:30pm | Friday & Saturday 8:00 p.m. | Sunday 3:00 p.m.
Belding Theater│ The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
SUNDAY SERENADES SERIES: PICASSO & PROKOFIEV
Sunday, January 26, 2014 at 2:00 p.m.
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
For tickets and more information, visit http://www.hartfordsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/ or call HSO Ticket Services at 860.244.2999.
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West Hartford Symphony
Holiday Family Concert
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 For over ten years, the West Hartford Symphony has been providing a musical outlet for residents of West Hartford and the Greater Hartford Area. Musicians from the ages of 14 to 86 come together once a week to play a variety of pieces and perform four concerts each year. For tickets and information, 860-521-4362 or http://whso.org/
Upcoming Events:
HOLIDAY FAMILY CONCERT
Sunday, December 15, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.
West Hartford Town Hall Auditorium
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Jorgensen Center : Upcoming Concerts
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Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts 2013-14 Events
Opened in December of 1955, Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts is the largest college-based presenting program in New England. Each season, Jorgensen events attract more than 70,000 students, faculty and staff from the University of Connecticut, as well as residents from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Jorgensen presents 25-30 nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles annually, ranging from classical music to world music and dance, classical and contemporary dance, comedy, family programming and contemporary entertainment. Box Office: 860.486.4226 or http://jorgensen.uconn.edu.
11/1
Savion Glover's SoLe Sanctuary
11/7
Jessica Lang Dance
11/13
Eighth Blackbird
11/17
Peter And The Wolf
12/7
Boston Pops Holiday Concert
2/1
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
2/13
Haifa Orchestra of Israel
2/23
Venice Baroque Orchestra
w/ countertenor Phillipe Jaroussky
2/28
Big Sam's Funky Nation
3/9
Irish Baroque Orchestra
3/13
Scharoun Ensemble Berlin
3/14
Danu
3/23
Popovich Comedy Pet Theater
3/27
Giselle
3/28
The Piano Guys
4/5
Latin Fest '14
4/23
Alonzo King LINES Ballet
4/27
LUMA Theater of Light
4/29
RTE Vanbrugh Quartet
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The Musical Club of Hartford
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The Musical Club of Hartford -
Upcoming Events
The Musical Club of Hartford, Inc.
The Musical Club of Hartford, Inc., is a non-profit Connecticut organization celebrating its 123rd anniversary this year. Each year, from October to May, ten or more concerts are presented by performing members, featuring soloists and vocal or instrumental ensembles. These concerts usually take place on Thursday mornings at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2080 Boulevard, West Hartford, CT. For more information, visit:
Program Dates
Thurs., Sep. 26 Opening Reception and Music by Members
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Thurs., Feb. 6 Mid-Year Business Meeting and Reception
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Thurs., Oct. 31 Music by Members, Open House reception follows
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SAXOPHONE ENSEMBLES
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Sun., Nov. 10 Watson Morrison 85th Birthday Recital at Hartt, 3:00 p.m.
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Thurs., Mar. 6 Musical Exploration Sarah Masterson
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Thurs., Nov. 14 Musical Exploration Susan Knapp Thomas, Harp
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E.B. Storrs Scholars
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Sun., Mar. 23 Piano Ensemble Day, at Hartt, 3:00 p.m.
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Thurs., Apr. 3 Music by Members
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Thurs., Jan. 9 Music by Members
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Sun., Jan. 19, High School Competition Winners, 2:00 p.m.
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Thurs., May 8 Annual Meeting and Luncheon, Town & County Club
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Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra
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The Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra 2013-2014
Concert Season
All concerts are at 3:00 PM at Trinity Episcopal Church
120 Sigourney St., Hartford.
The Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra, a non-profit Community Orchestra, presents numerous concerts 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. Besides commissioning and performing new works, the CVCO has made concert tours to Romania, Spain, Hungary, Austria and Poland under the sponsorship of organizations such as the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation.
November 10, 2013 - "Requiem
Our season opens with a program of "Life and Loss." Pieces of joyous energy, such as Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro Overture, are juxtaposed with the soothing melodies of the Faure Requiem. Faure's Pell�as et M�lisande explores the themes of love and loss, and Puccini's I Crisantemi mourns the sudden departure of a dear friend. The Requiem will feature soloists Amy Buckley, soprano and Robert Barefield, baritone,
and the Choir of Trinity Episcopal Church,
directed by Bert Landman.
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