Oh, There Are Many

I was staring at my cereal the other morning. And I was reminded that it’s October.

Then, for some reason, I found myself in a playful mood. I brought to mind a few composers: Jacques Offenbach, Georges Onslow (sometimes called the “French Beethoven”), and James Oswald, the Scottish contemporary of Handel. I also remembered the Norwegian composer Sparre Olsen, whose orchestral Air I’ve played.

There aren’t a lot of composers whose family names begin with an “O”.  But there are some well-known performers, like violinist David Oistrakh and pianists John Ogden, Garrick Ohlsson, Christina Ortiz, and Steven Osbourne.  Oh, and let’s not leave out pianists John O’Conor and Míċeál O’Rourke. There are conductors too, including Seiji Ozawa, Jean-Yves Ossonce, Eugene Ormandy, Eiji Oue, and Tuomas Ollila. Violinist Peter Oundjian, a one-time member of the Tokyo String Quartet, is a conductor as well. And oboist Pauline Oostenrijk wins a sort of quadruple crown, as an “O” appears twice at the beginning of her family name and twice in the name of her instrument!

There are some interesting first names in classical music which begin with the letter “O.” There’s Ottorino Respighi, the Italian composer, and Brazilian guitarist Odair Assad, who performs in the famous duo with his brother Sergio. Add to those the Russian pianist Oxana Yablonskaya, the Welsh harpist Ossian Ellis, the Finnish conductor Okko Kamu, the German conductor Otmar Suitner, and the Italian conductor Ottavio Dantone, who leads the ensemble Accademia Bizantina.

At that point I was on a roll. Well, actually, I was still on the bowl of cereal and the challenge of adding to my list, even as the tasty contents were vanishing.  I could have switched to the cereal with 26 different letters, but that would have been the easy way out. And besides, if I had opened it up to all the letters, I’d never have gotten out to the house in time to host Classic Mornings.

No, I was in the midst of an early morning challenge. And since I was making up the rules, I decided there was no reason to stick to just the names of composers, performers, and conductors.

That gave me a boost of energy! Or was it the cereal? Anyway, I added the word “orchestra.” And some of the orchestras I’ve played on Classic Mornings came to mind: the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, in Norway’s capital, and the Odense Symphony Orchestra, in Denmark’s third largest city. There’s the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, based in New York City, and the Orpheus Chamber Ensemble of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are operas, oratorios, and odes in classical music. Orfeo ed Euridice by Christoph Willibald Gluck, Otello by Giuseppe Verdi, Ottone by George Frideric Handel, L’Olimpiade by Antonio Vivaldi, and Oreste by Domenico Cimarosa are among the “O” operas. And there’s the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma with the song: “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.”  A Czech dance for piano by Bedřich Smetana is known as an Obkročák, and a charming piece for flute and orchestra by Camille Saint-Saëns is titled Odelette.

Many works have overtures, and many have opus numbers to make it easier to search them out or to order them. The term for the complete works of a composer is “oeuvre”.  There’s a separate catalog of Beethoven works with numbers preceded by the abbreviation WoO. In German it stands for “Werke ohne Opus”.  The abbreviation sort of works with the English translation: “Without Opus”. It’s a special occasion when works with whatever numbers earn ovations or outstanding reviews

The organ has been honored as the “King of Instruments”. Franois Couperin organized his harpsichord pieces into “ordres.” And chamber works for eight players are known as octets.

Eventually, I ran out of cereal in the bowl. I may have had the same inspiration if I had been eating bagels, donuts or pancakes, all of which are “O”-shaped.  It doesn’t matter. It was fun bringing to mind all of those names without the use of any books or devices!  I did run up and down the alphabet in my head, just like those who work on word puzzles. But know that you may have encountered any of the words or names just by listening to my program. And that’s why I was able to bring them all to mind. Believe me, when you’ve been hosting classical music programs for decades, the people and the terms connected to that music stay with you!  As much fun as it was, I wondered how that morning would have begun if I had opted for oatmeal instead.

I hope you’ll opt to join us for Classic Mornings, whether you recognize few or many of all those words and names. Tune in Monday through Friday from 9-noon on Illinois Classical, FM 90.9 or online at will.illinois.edu.