November 6

1607 (bapt) Sigmund Staden

1753 Jean Baptiste Sebastien Breval

1757 Louis-Abel Beffroy de Reigny

1854 John Philip Sousa

1883 Hubert Bath

1909 Henk Bijvanck

1910 Arthur Cohen

1936 David Ward-Steinman

1936 Barbara Heller

1937 Gordon Brisker

1962 Howard Fredrics

November 13

1699 (bapt) Jan Zach

1817 Louis-Lefebure Wely

1854 George Whitefield Chadwick

1868 Pierre Maurice

1875 Rogelio del Villar

1878 Reinhard Oppel

1879 Maurice Delage

1921 Joonas Kokkonen

1926 Max V. Mathews

1939 Margaret Lucy Wilkins

1945 John Plant

1946 Martin Bresnick

1947 Anthony Plog

1951 John Kaizan Neptune

1952 Marius van Paassen

1955 Cord Meijering

1976 Scott Unrein

November 20

1759 (bapt) Nikolaus Zmeskall

1776 Ignaz Schuppanzigh

1827 Edmond Dédé

1873 Daniel Gregory Mason

1899 Juan Vicente Lecuna

1921 Norbert Moret

1932 John Barnes Chance

1942 Meredith Monk

1955 Daniel William McCarthy

1970 Geoff Keezer

1971 Marco Oppedisano

1974 Orianna Webb

November 27

1602 Chiara Margarita Cozzolani

1731 Gaetano Pugnani

1750 Anton Thadäus Johann Nepomuk Stamitz 

1759 Franz Krommer

1801 Alexander Egorovich Varlamov

1804 Sir Julius Benedict

1827 Joseph Kaulich

1830 Harrison Millard

1860 Viktor Ewald

1867 Margaret Ruthven Lang

1867 Charles Koechlin

1879 Mabel Daniels

1895 Nico Dostal

1915 Victor Nicholas Alessandro

1925 Bertold Hummel

1935 Helmut Lachenmann

1938 Tien Cung

1953 David Felder

1960 Maria Schneider

1971 Edward Schocker

December 4

1660 (bapt) Andre Campra

1667 (bapt) Michel Pignolet de Monteclair

1806 Johann Burgmuller

1838 Rudolph Friedrich Niemann

1855 William J. Henderson

1879 Herbert Hamilton Harty

1910 Alex North

1945 Ron Hannah

1946 Pierre Even

1947 Robert J. Walsh

1951 Kenneth Lafave

1981 Ross Popoff

December 11

1566 Manuel Cardoso

1703 René Drouard de Bousset

1758 Carl Zelter

1803 Hector Berlioz 

1838 Whitney Eugene Thayer

1855 Julian Edwards

1876 Mieczyslaw Karlowicz

1892 Leo Ornstein

1905 Koos van de Griend

1907 Norbert Rosseau

1908 Elliott Cook Carter, Jr.

1937 Jan Bach

1938 Alfred McCoy Tyner

1941 Rogier van Otterloo

1944 David Ashley White

1971 Daniel Bernard Roumain

December 18

1746 Venanzio Rauzzini

1848 Frederick Grant Gleason

1860 Edward MacDowell

1862 Moriz Rosenthal

1870 Arsene Korestchenko

1873 Adolf Vogl

1941 Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith

1941 Don Walker

1949 David Liptak

1958 Julia Wolfe

1967 Christopher Theofanidis

December 25

1583 (bapt) Orlando Gibbons

1711 Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville 

1728 Johann Adam Hiller

1739 Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges

1829 Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore

1831 Johann Ritter von Herbeck

1859 Charles Whitney Coombs

1883 Fran Lhotka

1885 Gisella Augusta Zuckermann aka 'Mana Zucca'

1924 Noël Lee

1928 Heinrich Poos

1938 David Borden

1941 Ronald Perera

1969 Tom Schnauber

1977 Brendan Epstein-Hynes

Your "lyric theater" program

with Keith Brown

programming selections

for the months of November and December,  2014 

Sunday 1-4:30pm

Ernani

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 2ND

Handel, Jephtha 

     This was George Frideric Handel's last full-length composition. True, the secular oratorio The Triumph of Time and Truth followed Jephtha in 1757, but that work was mainly pieced together from preexisting music. In 1752 it was a struggle for Handel to complete the score of Jephtha. His eyesight was giving out; soon he would go quite blind with cataracts. Handel's final essay in the oratorio genre is quite dark as well.  It's a lyric tragedy, actually, taken from the Old Testament Book of Judges. Jephtha, the Israelite military hero, must sacrifice his daughter Iphis to the Lord as a consequence of his bargain with God for victory.  The story has its parallels in the Greek legends about Idomeneus and Agamemnon. In Thomas Morell's libretto for Jephtha, Iphis' death sentence is commuted because of the 18th century public's demand for a happy ending.  Jehovah shows His mercy and Handel gets to end the oratorio,as usual, with a rousing "Halleluyah!" chorus.  

     I have presented Jephtha once before, on Sunday, March 14, 1997, working from a CD reissue of a 1979 Decca/London recording.  Neville Mariner led his own chamber orchestra, The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, with an all-English lineup of choristers and vocal soloists. That British orchestral Academy is not a "period instrument" ensemble, but the Academy for Ancient Music of Berlin certainly is. Marcus Creed directs these "period" players, plus the RIAS Chamber Chorus and a mostly British cast of solo singers.  Jephtha was recorded in 1992 in co-production with Radio Berlin.  Berlin Classics issued the oratorio on three compact discs in 1994.  If you enjoyed listening to Jephtha on WWUH radio, why not go see and hear it performed live at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford this coming Saturday evening, November 8th.  The Hartt School's resident musicologist Ken Nott has prepared a new critical edition of Handel's score.  Hartt's choral specialist Edward Bolkovac conducts the Hartt Collegium and Hartt Chamber Choir.  Vocal soloists include the internationally acclaimed soprano Julianne Baird as Iphis.  For more information go online at harttweb.hartford.edu/.

SUNDAY  NOVEMBER  9TH

Verdi, Ernani  

      Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani (1844) sets forth a tale of political intrigue in Spain at the time of the conquistadors.  The story centers upon a nobleman of Aragon, one Don Juan,called Ernani,who has been forced to turn outlaw.  Amidst the struggle between rivals for the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor Ernani is also a rival for the hand of Donna Elvira. The bandit/nobleman becomes entangled in an assassination plot. In the end a fateful oath binds him to commit suicide.  Ernani is as bombastic as nineteenth century romantic opera can be.   Its improbable sequence of twists and turns was derived from a play by the French playwright Victor Hugo.  Another playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw had a special affection for this opera.  He recognized that in Ernani the young Verdi had created a score full of passionate melody.  Ernani established Verdi's international reputation.  

      Way back on Sunday, March 10, 1985 I presented an EMI/Angel recording of Ernani made live in performance in 1982 at Milan's famous La Scala opera house. Riccardo Muti was conducting the La Scala orchestra and chorus.  Cast in the title role was the superstar tenor Placido Domingo.  After more than three decades that old Angel LP issue has acquired a certain historical significance, but of truly historic value is the recording made live in performance at the Metropolitan Opera house in New York, December 1, 1962.  Thomas Schippers was directing the Met's orchestra and chorus, and the star of the show was the now recently deceased Italian tenor Carlo Bergonzi.  Opposite him as Donna Elvira was the American soprano Leontyne Price.  This recording is actually an airtape of a radio broadcast from the  Met.  Sony Classical gained access to the Met's archives and has included this  audio document of Ernani in its recent series of vintage releases "The Metropolitan Opera."  Sony has delved as far back in the archives  as the 1940's, giving us today the opportunity to hear voices from the period in the mid twentieth century that many opera lovers regard as the Golden Age of opera singing. Ernani came out in Sony's series in 2012 on two compact discs. 

      My broadcast of Ernani falls on the last day of the WWUH Fall Fundraiser week. I'll be breaking in on mike at certain junctures in my time-slot to urge you to donate your dollars to the fundraising drive. You faithful listeners have never failed to help this station meet or even exceed its fundraising goals in past seasonal efforts, so I thank you in advance for your generosity.     

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 16TH

Shakespeare, Julius Caesar  

     My broad definition of lyric theater embraces spoken-word drama, especially the plays of William Shakespeare.  It has been fully a decade since I have aired the recordings of the Bard's works in the BBC Radio Collection.  The British Broadcasting Corporation has been presenting full-length plays of Shakespeare since 1923.  Julius Caesar (1595), as directed by Eoin O'Callaghan, stars Gerard Murphy in the title role. The play is interpreted as if it took place in the Italy of 1925, the era of the dictator Benito Mussolini.  The director explains his perspective on the play in a brief introductory speech.  BBC Radio Three broadcast this audio production of Julius Caesar on September 26, 1999.  It was released on two compact discs by BBC Worldwide, Ltd. that same year. Those discs I last played on this same date exactly eleven years ago.  Stay tuned for famous scenes from Hamlet, starring Richard Burton, in Sir John Gielgud's 1964 Broadway production. The original cast recording was issued by Columbia masterworks on a single mono LP. After listening to these scenes I think you'll agree with me that Richard Burton was one of the greatest Hamlets ever to have trod the Thespic boards. 

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23RD   

MacDermot, The Human Comedy 

     Our American Thanksgiving holiday is actually a species of Northern hemispheric harvest home feast, and as you all know, home is where the heart is.  With "home" in mind, as a lyric theater prelude to your Thanksgiving festivities, I proudly present The Human Comedy (1984), a particularly operatic piece of popular American musical theater, the music by Canadian lyric theater composer Terence Galt MacDermot (b.1928), and lyrics by Bill Dumaresq.  Galt MacDermot gave the world Hair (1967), the hippie rock musical.  

     The Human Comedy is based on the novel by American author and playwright William Saroyan (1908- 81). Saroyan's story is set in a small town in California called Ithaca in 1942, in an era when people and goods travelled much more by rail than highway. We look in on the joys and sorrows of the Macauley family and other townspeople on "the home front" in World War Two.  News arrives that one of Ithaca's soldier boys has been killed in action. Communications by telegraph figure importantly in the drama. The Human Comedy is a heartfelt musical tribute to hometown America, with all the nostalgia that clings to the concept. It was produced on Broadway by the Shubert Brothers Organization.  Kilmarnock Records issued the original Broadway cast recording on two compact discs.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 30TH    

Wagner, Rienzi 

     Here's a Wagner opera that I can broadcast in its entirety on one Sunday afternoon! Frankfurt Opera has made a series of recordings of their live concert performances of Richard Wagner's early operas, this in celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of the composer in 1813. The German label Oehms Classics released Frankfurt Opera's Rienzi on three compact discs in Wagner's bicentennial year.  Sebastian Weigle directs the chorus and orchestra. The opera's story is based on the novel Rienzi, The Last of the Roman Tribunes by the English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton.  Wagner read it in German translation and prepared his own libretto from it.  His "Great Tragic Opera" rivals in its grand operatic scale the works of Spontini and Meyerbeer.  

     Tenor Peter Bronder stars in the title role in the new Frankfurt Opera production. The last time I aired Rienzi the starring tenor was Rene Kollo. That was way back on Sunday, August 5, 1984, when I presented Rienzi on five LP's in its 1976 world premiere recording for EMI of the first published edition of the score.  It was a production of Staatsoper Dresden, the city where Rienzi was first staged in 1842. (The premiere performance ran for six hours!) I struggled to squeeze that old recording into my three-and-a-half hour time-slot, cutting the ballet music in my effort to make it fit.  The new Oehms Classics CD concert version of the opera has been considerably abridged. But the cuts made reduces its playing time to the proper length for broadcast.  Actually, there no longer is a complete definitive autograph score for Wagner's third opera. It was destroyed in World War Two.  

SUNDAY DECEMBER 7TH 

PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game

SUNDAY DECEMBER 14TH

PREEMPTED by broadcast of a University of Hartford women's basketball game.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 21ST

Berlioz, L'Enfance du Christ 

     On this last Sunday in Advent you get to hear how a composer of the Romantic period reinterpreted the body of traditional material associated with the Christmas story. Hector Berlioz looked back with nostalgia to the music of olden times in crafting his "Sacred Trilogy" L'Enfance du Christ (1854). Berlioz did not, however, slip into a pseudo-archaic musical style in telling his tale of the babyhood of Jesus.  He decided not to imitate the past. Rather, he wholly reinvented it through the bold orchestral tone painting for which he had become famous. The choruses of L'Enfance du Christ possess particular charm. This work is a sacred cantata or perhaps a small triptych of an oratorio. 

     I first aired it on December 29,1991 on Denon CD's with Eliahu Inbal leading the musical forces in a 1989 radio production for Hessian Radio of West Germany. Then on Christmas Sunday, 2005 came the Hyperion CD's presenting a very British and more operatic treatment of "The Infancy of Christ" with Matthew Best directing the Corydon Orchestra and Singers, plus the boy choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. That 1995 Hyperion release has been superceded by one under the Swedish Linn Records label.  Again, this is a radio production of the cantata. Robin Ricciati directs the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir.  French tenor Yann Beuron is the narrator, Mary is French soprano Veronique Gens and the "Father of the Family" is British bass/baritone Alastair Miles.  The Linn recording was made in Stockholm in December of 2012 in co-production with Swedish Radio, and came out the following year on two compact discs.  My presentation of L'Enfance du Christ will begin at approximately 2:00 PM so as to accommodate the broadcast of a women's basketball game.

SUNDAY DECEMBER 28TH 

     Oftentimes at the end of the year I present one or another of the two famous oratorios The Creation (1798) and the Seasons (1801). This time around why not listen to The Seasons oratorio by John Christopher Smith the Younger (1712-95), son of Handel's copyist. You have heard something of J. C. Smith's work before, when on Sunday, March 9, 2003 I broadcast the Naxos recording of Nabal (1764), a posthumous pastiche of a Handel oratorio.  For Nabal Smith assembled and arranged various Handelian numbers, and wrote his own recitative passages linking them all together. 

     Entirely of his own composition is The Seasons (1740), a setting of lines from the Scottish poet James Thomson's popular pastoral poem which concludes with a Hymn on the Seasons. (Some of this versification found its way into the German language libretto that Baron Van Swieten prepared for Haydn's Die Jahreszeiten.) German readers had long enjoyed Thomson's poem in translation. Their admiration for it is carried forward into our own times in a 2014 Christophorus compact disc issue of Smith's oratorio. That German label has picked up the Musica Franconia recording of this work (a world premiere on disc?), made in co-production with Bavarian Radio. In the 2012 festival performance of The Seasons the Musica Franconia chorus enunciate the original English text perfectly well. Two native English-speaking vocal soloists were called in for the festival: countertenor Tim Mead and a longtime exemplar of baroque singing practice, soprano Emma Kirkby.  Wolfgang Riedelbach directs the chorus and the period instrumental group La Banda.  Smith's music builds upon Handel's style.  It's quite progressive for the end of the baroque era.  The orchestration is colorful and illustrates the poet's seasonal imagery so well, with sprightly passagework for woodwinds and horns. The two Christophorus CD's come out of my own collection of oratorio and opera on disc, as do two other recordings featured in this final two-month round of programming for the year 2014: the BBC compact discs of Julius Caesar and the Columbia LP of Richard Burton in Hamlet.  Galt MacDermot's The Human Comedy comes on loan from Rob Meehan, former classics deejay here at WWUH,and a specialist collector in the field of "alternative" classical music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The rest of the recordings are to be found in our station's ever-growing classical music record library. 

     I must thank everyone who assisted me in any way in my opera programming and broadcasting over the past twelve months,e specially our WWUH Operations Director Kevin O'Toole, who has been mentoring me in the preparation of these notes for cyber-publication.