Julius Beliczay, Composer and Railroad Man

This disc was originally released by the Hungarian State Railroad in 1995 and for good reason. It marked the 150th anniversary of the service, and the recording was by the railroad's own orchestra.

Yes, the Budapest Concerto Orchestra MÁV is an arm of the state railroad. And the choice of composer for this special release makes sense as well.

In addition to being a composer and teacher, Julius Beliczay was also a railroad engineer. Despite his day job, Beliczay was one of the most prominent composers in Hungary in the late 1800s.

Beliczay's First Symphony premiered in 1888. Beliczay was an admirer of Wagner and Bruckner, but this work leans more towards Brahms. Beliczay's orchestrations are well-crafted if a little conservative. In many ways, it reminded me of Dvorak's first symphony, in that it never colors outside the lines. But within those lines, Beliczay's written an attractive work.

I particularly like the slow movement, which spins out a simple and beautiful melody. It's here that the Hungarian folk influence is strongest.

The companion piece shows has an even stronger nationalist flavor. The 1875 Serenade is more relaxed, with some clear borrowings from Hungarian folk music. At no time, though, does it go as far as Brahms' Hungarian Rhapsodies. Beliczay's style is mostly cosmopolitan. There are some interesting chord progressions toward the end, though, that hint of Wagner.

Beliczay is cited as paving the way for the next generation of Eastern European composers, such as Antonin Dvorak. And that also is fitting. Dvorak was an avid trainspotter.

I found these works well-written and appealing. Even if you're not a train buff, there's plenty of reasons to give Beliczay an audition.

Julius Beliczay 
Symphony No. 1 in D minor, Op. 45 Serenade in D minor, Op. 16
Budapest Concert Orchestra MÁV; Tamál Gál, conductor

December Celebration: New Carols by Seven American Composers

Now here's a good idea. If you're like me and are sick to death of hearing the same old holiday "classics" year after year, then you'll welcome this new release from Pentatone.

December Celebration presents a cohesive program of fresh-sounding, accessible carols by living American composers. And while the musical language might lean a little on the conservative side, these are all well-constructed compositions. There's no dumbing down here. Even the well-known "Silent Night" gets an imaginative -- but wholly appropriate -- re-imaging by Gordon Getty.

One of my personal favorites is "How Bright the Darkness" by Luna Pearl Wolf. It's a delicately beautiful work, with a similar character to Britten's "Ceremony of Carols."

As with virtually all Pentatone releases, I strongly recommend purchasing the SACD version (as opposed to just downloading it). The more detailed the sound, the more beautiful the Volti Chorus seems to sing.

December Celebration will be getting heavy rotation in my personal holiday music playlist.

December Celebration: New Carols by Seven American Composers
Mark Adamo: The Christmas Life; Jake Heggie: On the Road to Christmas; Joan Morris & William Bolcom: Carol (Neighbors, on this Frosty Tide); David Garner: Three Carols; Lona Pearl Woolf: How Bright the Darkeness; Gordon Getty: Four Christmas Carols; John Corigliano: Christmas at the Cloisters; Franz Gruber, arr. by Gordon Getty: Silent Night
Lisa Delano, soprano; Lester Lynch, baritone; Volti Chorus; Musicians of the New Century Chamber Orchestra; Dawn Harms, conductor
Pentatone SACD PTC 5186 537

Hindemith - The Long Christmas Dinner

In an ideal world, Hindemith's 1961 on-act opera "The Long Christmas Dinner" would be be a perennial holiday favorite, alongside Menotti's 1951 "Amahl and the Night Visitors."

Both operas use a deceptively simple tonal language, making the music sound accessible without being cliche or trite. And both offer fresh takes on traditional holiday narratives.

"Amahl" is associated with the Christmas story, while "The Long Christmas Dinner" looks at a more personal holiday story -- the American family. This one-act opera traces the history of the Bayard family through several generations of Christmas dinners. There are marriages, births, deaths, and family falling-outs, all told in a marvelously economic fashion.

Hindemith's music makes connections between the constant parade of characters -- motifs for one generation are reinterpreted for the next. The opera opens with the first Christmas in a new house, and ends ninety years later with the final Christmas at that same house. Hindemith's opening music is referenced in the closing, helping provide dramatic closure to the work, while hinting that life for the Bayard family will go on.

Thornton Wilder's libretto should resonate with anyone who has grown up with holiday family dinners. There are the comfortably familiar family stories, the interplay between family members, the remembrance of those passed, and the excitement of new additions to the family, both spouses and children.

This performance works quite well, I think, and effectively carries the drama (although seeing it might help me keep all the characters straight more easily). Leon Botstein conducted what sounded to me like a simple, straight-forward performance of the work. The singers blended well in ensemble, and delivered clean, clear solo performances, making it easy to understand every word.

To me, it was an ideal presentation of a work that should appeal to more than just opera aficionados. Thornton Wilder's insights into family traditions, illuminated by Hindemith's music should resonate with most people, I think. But it can also conjure up a ghost or two, which perhaps keeps it from being a holiday favorite.

Beautifully recorded and highly recommended.

Paul Hindemith: The Long Christmas Dinner
Libretto by Thornton Wilder
Camille Zamora, Sara Murphy, Catherine Martin, Kathryn Guthrie, Glenn Seven Allen, Scott Murphree, Jarrett Ott, Josh Quinn
American Symphony Orchestra; Leon Botstein, conductor
Bridge 9449

Pubcasting and the HD Radio pretense

Jacobs Media just released their fourth annual study of core public radio listeners. There are lots of posts about the marked increase of tech and social media among listeners, which is something the study clearly shows.

But buried in the data is another story, I think. Consider -- according to the report:

1. HD Radio is only used 6% - a 3% decline from last year.
2. The average age for listeners who have been a contributor for more than 11 years is 63.
3. The average age for listeners who have been a contributor for less than 5 years is 50, with 19% being in the 25-34 age group (a demographic that doesn't even appear in the 11+ category).

In the olden days, most public radio stations were primarily classical music and news. Then Morning Edition and All Things Considered became the "tent poles." Both listenership (and giving) spiked dramatically when those two shows were on. So it wasn't long before stations were looking for ways to keep the magic going, by programming more news/talk.

But what to do about classical music? Everyone knows that only old people listen to classical music. They also represented the long-time (and sometimes big money) supporters of the station. But the real money -- and the younger audiences -- were in news/talk. So changes had to come.

No public radio station wants to be characterized as a culture-killer. Witness the firestorm when WETA dropped classical to go news/talk a few years ago. So rather than get rid of classical, some stations simply moved it to their HD Radio digital channel.  "No, classical isn't gone. We still broadcast it, and you can listen just as before -- if you have a special HD Radio, that is."

HD Radio has enjoyed greater usage in the public radio market than the commercial broadcasting field -- but its penetration is still dismal. And (see fact 1), it's shrinking. So for a station to claim that everybody wins when classical gets shoved onto a frequency that no one can receive seems a little disingenuous.  "No, we're not getting rid of it -- we're just putting it in the back of the attic where no one can easily get to it."

Fortunately, there's an upside to all this. Most stations that shift their music programming to HD2 also move it to the Internet. And online listening is an option that's growing among public radio listeners (just like the rest of the public).

The Jacobs Media survey shows the Internet to be the second-most used media for their study group (mobile phones were tops at 96%, Internet second at 91%). And over half regularly listen to content from their smartphone or MP3 player in the car. Sure, it could be podcasts (44% usage for this savvy group), or stored songs, or Pandora (only 18% usage). But there's a good chance that a significant part of it is content from the station -- and not necessarily their broadcast signal.

I have to admit that as much as I hate the programming of over-the-air WQXR (which I think is bland and boring), I love Q2 Music, which is their online-only alternative classical music service. It's innovative, it's fresh, it features living composers and unusual repertoire -- it's great! And it's online.

And I don't think they ever pretended it was available on an HD Radio channel.

Real American Music for the 4th

"I won't just listen to any old thing.
It's unAmerican."

My weekly classical music radio program I host on WTJU, "Gamut," lands on the 4th of July, and I've been thinking quite a lot about programming. I will definitely NOT be airing the 1812 Overture (as I explained in Retiring 1812 for the 4th). And I'd like to stay away from the typical fare: Sousa marches, Bernstein, Gershwin, Copland's "Appalachian Spring," John Williams film scores.

So what does that leave?

Plenty.

Most Americans -- even those who enjoy classical music -- seem unaware of the rich classical music heritage this country has. There really is more to American classical music than Samuel Barber's "Adagio."

Tomorrow morning I'll definitely be airing some shape note selections. In the late 1700's several itinerant and self-taught composers wrote hymns for the burgeoning spiritual revival sweeping through the new country. William Billings, Supply Belcher, and others created fuguing tunes, a uniquely American style of hymnody.

And then there's the Moravian school of the 1700's. Moravian settlers in Pennsylvania and South Carolina brought their love of music with them. Their ensembles regularly performed Mozart, Haydn, and other European composers of the day -- often playing the American premiers of their works. The body of compositions created by American Moravians is based on the early Classical style.

There are also several important American composers of the 1800's, who looked for a balance between American music and European concert traditions. Louis Moreau Gottschalk was a piano virtuoso who rivaled Franz Liszt in popularity, with compositions based on New Orleans folk melodies.

And Edward MacDowell, known today for just a single piano piece, but respected in his day for his orchestral compositions as well. MacDowell was part of the Second New England School, which also included important composers, such as Horatio Parker, George Chadwick, and John Knowles Paine

Moving into the 20th Century, there are the many colleagues of Copland and Barber: William Schuman, Paul Creston, Roy Harris and Howard Hanson -- respected perhaps more in Europe than in their own country.

Virgil Thompson wrote important music based on American themes, as did Randall Thomson. Henry Cowell composed a series of "Hymn and Fuguing Tunes" inspired by William Billings.

I could also go with some distinctively American composers -- Charles Ives, Harry Partch, Carl Ruggles and other unique artists.

Moving to more recent times, there are the minimalists, such as Steve Reich, John Adams, and Philip Glass, who are internationally recognized. And many, many more.

I've got a lot to choose from -- over 200 years of music -- but I know two things. My show tomorrow morning will be made up exclusively of American music that hasn't been overplayed, and that music will be great.

Penderecki/Greenwood: Two composers with a shared vision

Krzysztof Penderecki/Jonny Greenwood
Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima / Popcorn Superhet Receiver
Aukso Orchestra; Krzysztof Penderecki,
Marek Mos, conductors
Nonesuch

It’s an interesting concept for a concert – and an album. Bring together composers of two different generations, with the younger being deeply influenced by the older and present their music side-by-side.

In this case, the older composer is Krzysztof Penderecki, an acknowledged master in the field of classical music. The younger is Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist of Radiohead.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking of Greenwood as just another rocker dabbling in classical for a little artistic cred. He’s a trained multi-instrumentalist who is very familiar with the classical music world, and Penderecki’s music in particular.

The disc features Penderecki’s classic Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. The Aukso Orchestra, conducted by the composer, gives the work a somewhat subdued reading. Threnody can be a very disturbing and unsettling work. This contemplative performance suggests that the horrors, though not forgotten, happened a long time ago.

Popcorn Superhet Receiver by Greenwood follows. The work owes its direct inspiration to the sound of shortwave radio, a mixture of signal and background hiss. At the same time, one can hear a similarity to Penderecki’s Threnody. In fact, Threnody seamlessly leads directly into Popcorn, almost as if the two compositions were part of a larger work.

Polymorphia, though written in 1961, still sounds like a work that pushes the limits of both the instruments and the audience. Penderecki’s concerned with clouds of sound, and he subtly changes them throughout the work. Although there’s no discernible melody, the underlying logic of the work is clear enough, and Polymorphia has a forward motion that arrives at an inevitable climax (although the listener might be hard-pressed to explain how it got there).

Greenwood’s 48 Responses to Polymorphia takes the elements of Penderecki’s work and breaks them into smaller components that get individual examination. It’s a perfect companion piece to Polymorphia. Yes, there are some highly rhythmic sections that have the vitality of rock, but there’s not a trivial gesture anywhere to be found. This is a well-constructed, serious piece of music that takes Penderecki’s exploration of sound and goes even further with it.

This release is a fascinating blend of two composers whose styles do more than complement each other. The album create a coherent soundscape that takes the listener farther than any of the works do individually.

Highly recommended for those with a thirst for audio adventure.