Guitar Concerto by Elmer Bernstein on Next Fretworks

The next Fretworks airing Saturday evening at 7 and the following Wednesday at 7 pm, will featuring the Guitar Concerto-For Two Christophers by Elmer Bernstein.  He was best known for his outstanding Hollywood film scores, including for The Magnificent Seven, The Ten Commandments, To Kill a Mockingbird, and many others but wrote music for the concert hall as well. Elmer Bernstein (no relation to Leonard) had studied with both Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions.  The Guitar Concerto got its title "For Two Christophers," from Christopher Parkening, for whom it was written, and from Christopher Palmer, a close friend of the composer who died in the 1990's and had encouraged him to keep working on the concerto when he thought of giving up on it.  The concerto was finished and recorded in 1999 with Parkening as soloist and the London Symphony Orchestra with Elmer Bernstein conducting. Also on the program this week, Lynn McGrath will play the Hungarian Fantasy by the 19th century Hungarian guitar virtuoso and composer Johann Kasper Mertz.  Flutist Marina Piccinini and the Brasil Guitar Duo will have their arrangement of the Flute Sonata in E of Johann Sebastian Bach, and guitarist Steven Novacek plays Coro de Saudade by Agustin Barrios. To round out the hour, lutenist Nigel North has a couple of Renaissance dances from the time of Shakespeare by Robert Johnson.  Join me for music of the classical guitar, and this week for the lute as well, on Fretworks, Saturday and Wednesday evenings at 7 on Classical 101.