Maurice Ravel, Leopold Stokowski, Franz Liszt, and a handful of others were accomplished musicians who knew what they were doing.  Too often, however, transcriptions are made by instrumentalists or ensembles looking to perform music that wasn’t written for their respective instruments or combinations thereof.  Thus, you often find clarinet sonatas by Brahms performed by flutists, or any piece by anybody performed by brass quartets.  Guitarists are frequent offenders.

For years now, a compact disc has popped up on the play-lists of one of my colleagues that I have resisted adding to my own.  The disc is of the Amsterdam Guitar Trio playing their own transcriptions of Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque and Petite Suite, and Gabriel Fauré’s Dolly.  This is music I love, but couldn’t help but feel the transcriptions gimmicky.  I’ve changed my mind.  After all this time, I have finally come around to liking it.  Those pieces aren’t so serious as to preclude a three-guitar treatment, and hearing it that way is a refreshing diversion.  Listen to this bit from the Petite Suite:

After years of avoiding this recording, I finally bought my own copy this week.

Debussy: Petite Suite; Suite Bergamasque. Fauré: Dolly, Op. 56. Chopin: Rondo in C Major, Op. 73.  Amsterdam Guitar Trio.  RCA 7800

But Barber, of course, wrote much more.  Yesterday, for example, I listened to Gil Shaham’s wonderful recording of Barber’s Violin Concerto, which deserves a place in the regular concert repertoire.

Happy Birthday, Samuel Barber.

UPDATE:  When I arrived at work this morning, I noticed that Exploring Music this week is devoted to Samuel Barber.  Tomorrow, in fact, the show will feature Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and the fabulous Summer Music for Woodwind Quintet.  Friday’s show will have the Piano Concerto played by John Browning – a recording I have on CD.

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I am receiving some solace, however, in the outpouring of popular support for classical music, and in the reighteous indignation from listeners who have written letters–published today–to the Gainesville Sun protesting the format change.  There have been op-eds, as well, from Raymond Chobaz, the conductor of the University Orchestra, and from Mickie Edwardson, a wonderful lady and former UF professor, with whom I have had the pleasure of working for years during the station’s pledge drives.  Dr. Edwardson knows tons about opera, and her recording collection puts mine to shame.  She is a fantastic emisary for classical music.  She once gave me a biography of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

I don’t know if anything can change the dean’s mind at this point.  But it makes my heart happy to know that people don’t want to take this lying down.  My new battle-cry:

WUFT-FM is a great public radio station.  It is an NPR affiliate, and, of course, the NPR programs we air–Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and so on–are fine programs that we all enjoy.  But, when WUFT was founded over twenty-five years ago, classical music also figured prominently in the mission of the station.  And that mission has been successful for all these years because the public has been very supportive.

Obviously, public radio support is measured in pledge dollars, and, from a cost/benefit perspective, classical music is probably the best format.  While nationally-syndicated news and public affairs programming is very expensive (over $1,000 per broadcast hour), classical music is a relative bargain.  The cost-effectiveness of classical music is such that, at WUFT, the pledges for classical make up for the deficits the more expensive news programs generate.  That is not a bad thing, though.  Rather, it is a mutually beneficial way to bring variety to the listening audience.

The first sign of trouble appeared during the membership campaign last April.  A letter appeared in the Gainesville Sun–an unsolicited letter not tied to any previous article or op-ed–that complained about the classical music.  It was a letter which ought to have elicited nothing but laughs and derision, since it complained that our format was devoted to “dead, white, slave-traders”.  I don’t know a single classical music composer that ever owned a slave, much less traded slaves.  A letter from a crackpot doesn’t have much power to change anything.  But on its heels appeared an op-ed by a somewhat well-known local photographer, which posited that our format was stale and that Gainesville listeners were missing out on a host of other NPR programs. This op-ed initially had an effect that was the opposite of what may have been intended.  The day after its publication, WUFT had a great pledge day for classical music, and the Sun eventually published a series of letters in support of classical music.

Then, after the seas calmed, word came that a committee was considering possible changes to WUFT’s format.  A proposal to expand local news coverage and increase student involvement seemed perfectly sensible.  And, perhaps that would be the extent of the change.  But the minutes of the committee’s meetings suggested that bigger changes were on the table.  On the second floor, it was clear that this wouldn’t end well.  No one on the staff involved in music programming, including the station manager, was appointed to the committee.  This led some to believe that a decision had already been made, and that the committee was merely window dressing.  The rumors reached the public, and more letters appeared in the Gainesville Sun, including a scathing op-ed by UF music professor Raymond Chobaz, which alluded to UF president Bernie Machen’s involvement in the elimination of classical music programming from the radio station at his previous employer, the University of Utah.

This afternoon the official word came out:  WUFT will go all-talk.  No more classical music after August 3, 2009.  Supposedly, the second HD stream will be devoted to classical music full-time. But it is unclear whether it will be locally programmed or come from a generic national satellite source.  It is also unclear what jobs will be eliminated.  And what will become of the other arts institutions in North Central Florida, which have enjoyed a warm relationship with WUFT, is also unclear.

I don’t speak for my coworkers, and I don’t speak for WUFT.  But, as you all know, I certainly speak for my self.  And for me, this is heartbreaking.

In a famous 1763 portrait, a six-year-old Mozart is shown posing with a gift given to him by Empress of Austria, Maria Theresa.  What was the gift?

A new fancy pants suit of clothes.

Don’t read the following if you’re easily disgusted:

As it is, I can be sitting perfectly still, minding my own business, when suddenly, and without warning, liquid will begin pouring from my nose like a spigot.  I am not talking about the viscous, yellow mucous associated with typical illness, but thin fluid, almost like water.  The ridiculous quantity and duration of the dripping last night was such that I began to laugh out loud.  If I had a video camera and no shame it would have made a hilarious YouTube video.

So, with the dress rehearsal Sunday afternoon I was able to get a feel of how the production would go, and it was very helpful. My job was to introduce each of the fifteen or so pieces of music, and the performers thereof. It would be not unlike what I do every day on the radio, only this would be scripted and before a live audience. I wore my charcoal suit, and arrived just before two o’clock in the rain. The auditorium was open and mostly empty but for some crew setting up chairs on stage. But before long we were going through the program, and the students were practicing their entrances and exits. I found myself getting hung up on some awkward phrasing in the text, but I fixed it up before the performance.

I needn’t have feared ruining everything. Aside from speaking a little too fast at the beginning, I didn’t stumble at all, though I did require the use of the script, since there was no way I could have memorized every line. And I found the whole thing to be fun, especially the energy of a live event, and the whirlwind of backstage activity. It’s like a beehive in the wings, and behind the scenes were students getting into costume, and waiting to go on. And some of these students were very talented. There was a Ukrainian pianist named Anastasiya Naplekova who played Liszt’s Rigoletto Paraphrase with an energy and technical brilliance that was astonishing. Then, in the Act III quartet on which Liszt’s transcription is based, the soprano singing Gilda was excellent. The tenor singing the Duke was perhaps overparted for Verdi, but his Tamino in the Act I quintet from Die Zauberflöte was perfect. He’s going to have a career. The drei Damen were well matched vocally. There was a Japanese student named Risa Iguchi who played Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, a performance made more impressive by the fact that her accompanist was her tiny 15-year old sister, Mona. There were dozens of choristers wearing colorful kimonos twirling parasols waiting to take the stage for a preview of the upcoming Mikado production at the Constans Theater. I even got to introduce a gentleman named Carroll Bailey, a 1936 UF graduate who won a bronze star in WWII, and later wrote an opera called De Soto, the rights to which he has donated to the university. Another high point, so to speak, was the coloratura soprano who sang the Queen of the Night’s Act I aria from The Magic Flute with seeming felicity, even squarely hitting the high F. Amazing.

Dr. Offerle did a really wonderful job organizing the whole affair, and I understand the school raised a lot of money, since tickets to the event were quite expensive, and they found some great sponsorship. The proceeds fund scholarships, and many of the performers are recipients of the self-same scholarships, so, the money is being well-spent. I was glad to be involved.

On a sad note, during my Pre-Opera Program today I paid tribute to tenor Giuseppe di Stefano who died earlier this week at age 86. Back in 2004 he had been attacked by robbers at his home in Kenya, leaving him paralyzed. I played selections from his recordings of Rigoletto and Puritani, and a complete Pagliacci, which was wonderful in the old-style you never hear any more. As I wrote when Pavarotti died, Di Stefano’s passing would be another in a sad but steady procession of opera royalty.