Category: Music

Quasquicentennial

Eugene Ormandy with The Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, 1940s. Photo: Eugene Ormandy Collection of Photographs, 1880-1992, University of Pennsylvania.

Or, to be rather less threatening about it, the Philadelphia Orchestra is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. The orchestra is very closely associated with the historic Academy of Music, which is where I saw them in my youth, and my first visit to the Kimmel Center last year suggested that the new hall is fully worthy of the orchestra, acoustically and architecturally.

Enthusiasts for the orchestra can tune into WRTI this Sunday at 1:00 pm Eastern for the start of a special two-week celebration, “examining the evolution of ‘the Philadelphia Sound’ through the performances and comments of the conductors who have nurtured it,” as WRTI host Melinda Whiting at this web page has it. Sunday’s program begins with the earliest years of the orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and carries through to the orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and Riccardo Muti; next week the celebration picks up with a look at the orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch, Christoph Eschenbach,  and its current music and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

You can livestream WRTI’s programming directly from its home page. For a little more context, look up Bruce Hodges’ insightful introduction to the Philadelphia Sound, which reveals that it’s about more than the string section.

All in the family

Better than a Grammy, and not just because it’s French: L’Origine du Monde, an album of the music of Hugues Dufourt performed by my lovely wife Marilyn Nonken, has been awarded the 2025 “Coup de cœur” from the Académie Charles Cros Contemporary Music Committee (les Coups de coeur 2025 musique contemporaine de l’Académie Charles-Cros). As this press release from Métier has it:

Founded in the aftermath of World War II in 1947, the Charles Cros Academy defends musical diversity, ensures the preservation of sound memory, supports the creation, career development of artists, the entrepreneurial spirit and courage of graphic and phonographic publishers. …

“Métier is excited to celebrate this award with pianist Marilyn Nonken. L’Origine du Monde marked her third album exploring the spectral music movement, of which she is a leading interpreter. An award from this distinguished French Academy is all the more appropriate for this album of music by Hugues Dufourt, a foundational figure of the French spectral school. Métier and First Inversion thank the Académie for this recognition.” — David Weuste, First Inversion Executive Director

L’Origine du Monde has also received excellent reviews from the likes of Gramophone magazine, which called it “an exceptionally assured and spellbinding demonstration of Dufourt’s uncompromising creative ambitions.” You can purchase a CD or stream the entire album at Presto Music. It’s available on Apple Classical too.

Opernabend: Don Giovanni, Vienna, 1955

A rehearsal session for Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Conductor Karl Böhm is on the right; next to him Erich Kunz; behind him George London; Sena Jurinac; and at far left Anton Dermota. Vienna, 1955.

An “alpha-plus” according to the eminent Sir Denis Forman, Mozart’s 1787 Don Giovanni, in a landmark 1955 Wiener Staatsoper recording conducted by Karl Böhm, will be broadcast by radio klassik Stephansdom tomorrow, Saturday, January 31, at 2:00 pm Eastern time. The fine cast includes George London as the lecherous Giovanni, Erich Kunz as his hapless servant Leporello, Sena Jurinac as Donna Elvira, and Ludwig Weber as Giovanni’s nemesis, The Commendatore.

Eva Reinold hosts this broadcast, a fitting end to Mozart’s Birthday Week. You can stream it here.