Radiovisions: #2: Elder Statesmen of American Music

Digital Audio

Event Type

Documentaries

Origin

NPR

Identifier

RV.1981.05.13.c5

Program Series

Radiovisions

Program Length

59 min

Dates

| broadcast
| 1981-05-13 | created

Description

This program on the Elder Statesmen of American Music focuses on Ernst Bacon, Otto Luening, Leo Ornstein, Dane Rudhyar, Nicholas Slonimsky, and Virgil Thomson. Each of these octogenarians began their careers when no recognizable American classical music existed. Each of them, (as of 1981), was still actively working on their craft. All have, in their individual ways, advanced the cause of modern American music. Producer Charles Amirkhanian traveled the country to collect materials for audio portraits of these "Elder Statesmen: in their own words and music".

Genres

New music
20th century classical

Musical Selections

Ionisation [excerpt] (1929-31) / Edgard Varèse -- Studies in Black & White [excerpts] / Nicolas Slonimsky -- Wild Man's Dance (ca. 1913) / Leo Ornstein -- Echo Primitif [from “9 Arabesques”] (ca. 1920) / Leo Ornstein -- Pentagrams Book III: Gates (1924-26) / Dane Rudhyar -- Pentagrams Book III: Stars (1924-26) / Dane Rudhyar -- Pig-town Fling / Ernst Bacon -- Billy in the Darbies [text by Herman Melville] / Ernst Bacon -- Capital Capitals [excerpt, text by Gertrude Stein] (1927) / Virgil Thomson -- The Mother of Us All [excerpt, text by Gertrude Stein] (1947) / Virgil Thomson

Performers

Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (Ionisation)
Zubin Mehta, conductor (Ionisation)
Nicolas Slonimsky, piano (Black)
Michael Sellers, piano (Wild)
Martha Anne Verbit, piano (Echo)
Michael Sellers, piano (Pentagrams)
Robert Helps, piano (Pig-Town)
William Parker, baritone (Billy)
William Huckaby, piano (Billy)
Santa Fe Opera (Mother)
Raymond Leppard, conductor (Mother)

Subjects

New music
20th century classical
Composers
Avant-garde (Music)
Percussion ensembles
Piano music
Songs (Medium voice) with piano
Vocal quartets with piano
Operas -- Excerpts