Jeffrey Swann kicks off SAIPC Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Beethoven Festival: Cello Handel Variations

Enjoy this first night of the Beethoven Festival with Ken Freudigman and Kristin Roach!

Camerata SA kicks off Beethoven Festival

SA Opera on hold

San Antonio Opera has canceled their performance next month of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Learn more from a news story on KSTX with executive director Terry Frazor.
KPAC's John Clare spoke with the President of SA Opera board Jorge del Alamo about the situation: mp3 file

More than you bargained for…

There used to be a tradition at the Moscow Conservatory were upper classmen would take a freshman pianist and give them some music of Nikolai Medtner to sight read. The music can look deceptively easy and after a few stumbles the newcomer realizes that there is still much to learn about music in general and Medtner in particular.

Medtner was an intellectual and composed music that pleased his mind as well as the ear. This January the Piano celebrates two Russian composers with ties to the Moscow Conservatory; Alexander Scriabin and Nikolai Medtner. I start with Medtner and his third concerto where the entirety of his musical life is portrayed in its three movements. Plus something from his Paris years with his Theme & Variations and one of the most melodic of his Forgotten Melodies, the Canzona Serenata.

Hear the musician that Rachmaninoff thought was the composer of the future, Nikolai Medtner on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Best of 2011

Here are ten of our favorite interviews from 2011 on Classical Spotlight:

John and Joyce in Houston, TX.

Janine Jansen on Beau Soir

Sharon Isbin on Guitar Passions

Dmitry Sitkovetsky on Haffner

Joyce DiDonato on Divo/Diva

Ruth Moreland on Sacred Tranquility

David Kim on Redeemer Fine Arts

Marguerite McCormick on Spring Song

Sebastian Lang Lessing on Liszt

Angèle Dubeau on Portrait

Itzahk Perlman on his Recital

Plump, delicious Children

In Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel everything appears in two's. Heavenly intervention and malicious intent, there is paternal alienation and deepest love with a search for adventure and the desire for domestic safety; the meaning of being lost through a wandering in a dark wood and being found - different and changed by experience, but only after the brush with danger. It is all done though a magical process of blending what would seem to be impossible: the most innocent intention and the deepest intuitive knowing. Humperdinck's gift of conjouring up childlike experience (with echoes the Magic Flute) and profound lyricism (with touches of Parsifal) yields a unique work, Hansel and Gretel.

The work began as a Christmas gift at the suggestion of Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Witte, later librettist of the "fairytale opera" or Marchenoper. She adapted a series of scenes from the Brothers Grimm, adding her own poetry. Would he put it to music for the children, for Christmas? It swiftly evolved from adaption to singspiel (partly spoken and partly sung) to the universally loved fairytale opera that we know today. The prize winning and serious Humperdinck who had seen the Ring and been invited by Wagner himself after a meeting in Italy to come to Bayreuth, now turned all he knew into a tale for children that simultaneously blends childlike innocence with musical artistry of the highest level. Beginning with two youngsters hungry and looking for diversion with an undertone of the impish and the rebellious, all as the holiday season approaches. They were suppose to have been working at their father's broom business, but played and danced to forget their hunger. There follows a scolding from mother and her tears over the family's desperate plight. Then the father arrives loaded with food and presents only to find to his shock and amazement the children have been sent into the dangerous wood by the now frantic mother. Lost and lured by the temptation of a Gingerbread House (and a feast!) after an encounter with the Sandman followed by one of the most lyrical prayers in all of opera they fall asleep looked over by the appearance of fourteen angels. They are awakened the next morning by the Dew Fairy and then comes final almost fatal encounter the Witch, whose intention is to eat them. They escape and triumph over all obstacles returning at last to home.

Like the subject matter itself, the life of the holiday opera was something of a fairytale. Doubtful of it's value Humperdinck was astonished when Richard Strauss, it's first conductor pronounced it "a masterpiece". It's next performance taken up by no one less than Gustav Mahler. 

Tune in to this weeks Met presentation and a perfect close to the holiday season, Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, this Saturday at noon on KPAC and KTXI .

by Ron Moore

Gli Unici in concert

Classical Spotlight will feature three tenors, Gli Unici performing this weekend at Trinity University's Laurie Auditorium in a benefit for Haven For Hope. There is more information here.
Tune in Thursday at 1pm on KPAC & KTXI.

Soundtrack Review: "Shame"

The fifteen-track soundtrack to director Steve McQueen’s harrowing tale of sexual addiction, “Shame,” carries with it a melancholy mood, despite the appearance of party tunes like the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” and Blondie’s “Rapture.”

Harry Escott’s original music for the film appears on three tracks, opening the album with the main character’s theme, “Brandon.” Escott’s music is characterized by slow-moving chords and an underlying melody from the low strings. There’s a persistent ticking in the background, and the high strings eventually take over the theme, which lasts about eight minutes.  Escott’s music is similarly structured in the cue “Unraveling,” and is limited to solo piano chords for the film’s “End Credits.”

The rest of the album is a mix of sounds that evoke the chilly world of wintertime in New York; Blondie and the Tom Tom Club are joined by Chic and Chet Baker; John Coltrane’s famous “My Favorite Things” is here, but it’s mysteriously upcut by a couple of piano notes by the disc’s sequencing.

Glenn Gould’s marvelous renditions of Bach hold the album together. In the movie, Brandon listens to Gould’s magic even as he sinks further into the abyss.

At the center of this soundtrack is actress Carey Mulligan’s naked rendition of “New York, New York.” The minor key and chromatic piano flourishes give way to a heartbreaking, a capella section as Mulligan struggles to hold the tune through tears, transforming the powerful anthem into a plea. It’s well worth the download (link above, and see trailer below for a sample).

--Nathan Cone

Borrowing Beethoven?

We're looking forward to the Beethoven Festival this month and next...Beethoven was such an incredible figure - no doubt if you catch even just a portion of the concerts, you'll hear how Beethoven has influenced so many composers after him!
We'll be screening A Clockwork Orange and also sharing "TPR Presents...Beethoven." As a great example of how influences can be made, here is Kevin Puts' Inspiring Beethoven (note there is some odd artwork, not designed by TPR or Kevin Puts!) :



We also thought a play by play of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and this "Raiders of the Lost Archives" might be useful as a look, in general, about borrowing (and cooler visuals!) :