Your Classical Coffee Break

The American composer and arranger Robert Russell Bennett was best known for orchestrating hit Broadway and Hollywood musicals, but he also wrote numerous compositions that were rarely played and never recorded. Paul Somers, and our special guest his wife Jan Somers, acquired the rights and began publishing and recording these uncovered musical gems through Maurice River Press. Listen to music that has not been played in decades and was never previously recorded. Discover a piece of American music long forgotten in this very special coffee break.

For information about the Robert Russell Bennett recordings, contact:

This coffee break discusses how classical music is used in advertising (and some movies) to put people in the mood to purchase products or services. Mr. Somers challenges us to match the well-known classical pieces with the ads (or purchase impulses) that they inspire. We also briefly circle back to review the musical structure of Thus Spake Zarathustra by Richard Strauss.

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This coffee break journeys beyond Aaron Copland's music and explores the powerful, open sounds of three other important American composers: Walter Piston, Roy Harris, and Norman Dello Joio. Although their music is rarely played in the symphony hall, these three composers stand alongside Copland as essential American artists. Mr. Somers shares Dello Joio's wonderful choral piece, "A Jubilant Song."

Here's a link to the entire piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i8kxRallMk

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This coffee break revisits the exuberant American sound of Aaron Copland with another hearing of his powerful The Tender Land, but it quickly veers off to check out some "unCopland-like" sounds. During his 52-year career, Copland composed a wide variety of powerful music from small dissonant pieces, movie scores, Marine Corps anthems, and even a soundtrack for an industrial film for the 1939 World's Fair. Copland's score for the movie North Star shows how he revolutionized how soundtracks were written.

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Mr. Somers shares the powerful music of the great American composer Aaron Copland from an early piano piece (which he describes as "big hands full of notes") to the later better known pieces such as Fanfare for the Common Man. He discusses how Copland's American sound was created, spare but powerful, like a Remington painting. We briefly hear a piece from his heartbreaking opera, The Tender Land.

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Ludewig Spohr is another genius of the 1800s who has dropped out of fashion. A composer of more than 300 works for symphony, chamber ensemble, violin, clarinet, and voice, his excellent works are rarely heard today. Mr. Somers also gives us a taste of another great composer Walter Piston, and the classical base of an old radio/TV theme song.

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The towering music of Johann Sebastian Bach was not in fashion during his lifetime; he was known mainly for his exceptional organ playing. But it was his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Christian Bach who were the megastars and paved the way for the Classical period of Mozart and Haydn. JSB must have been a proud poppa. Also, how silence can break your heart. And what did Miles Davis mean when he said, "Never play the root"?

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The Miles Davis reference comes from a Mark Maron WTF podcast interview of Paul Schaefer. Caution--the language is explicit.

http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-797-paul-shaffer

Before dying at a young age from tuberculosis, Jan Vaclav Vorisek wrote one great symphony. Franz Schubert also died young but was extremely prolific, while his compatriot Vorisek spent much of time studying and practicing law. Some compositions we now consider great were unheard or unappreciated during the composers' lifetime. Was it politics or fashion that Shubert never heard his 9th Symphony and Beethoven's Violin Concerto was revived after Ludwig's death by a 12-year-old violinist?

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The Pauls continue their discussion on the barriers to fame for brilliant classical composers. It wasn't until Haydn went to Vienna and opened up his repertoire (instead of writing music for the obscure string instrument, the baryton) did he get the recognition he deserved. Luigi Boccherini, the originator of the string quartet, become obscure when he moved to to Spain. Gender is also a strong barrier to fame, as Mr. Somers shares the brilliant, yet woefully underappreciated work of Teresa Carreno.

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Check out this newsletter on Boccherini:

http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/bocc_mark.htm

Could it be that some geniuses are never discovered because of where they live? Okay, today the Web allows everyone to share music, genius or not, but back in the day Johann Wilhelm Wilms might have written symphonies as powerful as Beethoven's but, because he lived in Amsterdam, nobody heard. Mr. Somers shares some powerful music by, perhaps, the greatest composer you never heard of.

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