This Week at The Classical Station

This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper

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Saturday and Sunday, 8-9 February 2025

It’s the weekend, Listeners!

We are here to provide classical music nutrition. Here’s what’s on the menu:

Saturday:

Join us at 1pm for Saturday On Point, featuring recordings of full ballets. This week, music from Reinhold Glière’s ballet The Bronze Horseman.

Then at 6pm ET, Haydn Jones hosts the Saturday Evening Request Program.
The playlist is here; make requests for next week’s programs here.

 

Sunday:

This week’s Great Sacred Music includes performances by the Tallis Scholars, organist Simon Preston, and the ensemble Cantilena, with works by William Byrd, Orlande de Lassus, Cesar Franck, and more. Our featured work is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben. Join us at 8am ET, right after Sing for Joy.

And then tune in at 6pm ET for Preview! with Tom Hayakawa and a taste of some of the latest releases from the classical music world.

 

 

On these dates in the history of classical music:

German organist and composer Jacob Schulz Praetorius was born February 8, 1586, in Hamburg. Praetorius was born into a musical family: He was grandson of Jacob Praetorius the Elder; son of Hieronymus Praetorius, and brother of Johann Praetorius, who were also composers. He was also a student of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Praetorius was named organist at the Petrikirche (Church of Saint Peter) in Hamburg in 1603 and was also a music teacher throughout his life. He later also became organist at Hamburg’s Jakobikirche (Church of Saint James). As a composer, Praetorius was both a traditionalist and a progressive and wrote sacred music that defined the genre, as well as influencing the coming Baroque period; he was also perhaps the most famous organist and music teacher of his day in the north German tradition prior to Johann Sebastian Bach. 

Austrian composer Alban Berg was born February 9, 1885, in Vienna, and was writing music in his teenage years as a mostly self-taught musician. In 1904, Berg became a student of Arnold Schoenberg, studying counterpoint, music theory, composition, and harmony, and he carried on Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. Berg served in the Austro-Hungarian during World War I (1915-1918) and then returned to Vienna to teach private music lessons and to help Schoenberg continue work in his Society for Private Musical Performances. His most famous works are likely his operas Wozzeck (1924, Berg’s first public success) and Lulu (1935, finished posthumously), his Lyric Suite and Chamber Concerto (1925, for piano, violin and 13 wind instruments), and his Violin Concerto. In the 1930’s, the Nazi regime added Berg’s music to the list of degenerate music; he died not long afterward (1935) from sepsis caused by an insect sting on his back. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and the most widely performed opera composer of his time. Also, the asteroid 4528 Berg is named after him (1983).

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Friday, 7 February 2025

Happy Friday, Listeners!

It’s All-Request Friday (10am-10pm ET) and we’re playing your favorites and dedications!

We’ll do it again tomorrow on the Saturday Evening Request Program (6pm-12am ET).

Check the playlists to see what will play when, and make your requests and dedications for next week.

 

On today’s date in classical music history:

It’s the birthdate of Romanian-French composer and conductor Marius Constant in Bucharest in 1925. Constant was a student of piano and composition at the Bucharest Conservatory and the winner of the George Enescu Award in 1944. He moved to Paris in 1946 and was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris as a student of Olivier Messiaen, Arthur Honegger, and Nadia Boulanger. Constant was an early supporter and collaborator in electronic music starting in 1950, but he kept one foot firmly planted in traditional classical music. He was conductor at the Ballets de Paris (1956-1966) and wrote numerous ballet scores (including Contrepointe (1958) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1959)), other orchestral works (like 24 Préludes pour Orchestre (1958) and the tone poem Turner (1961)), and concerti. Constant is perhaps most famous, however, for music he wrote for CBS in the late 1950s when the network hired him to write stock music for radio and TV shows. The main title for the television series The Twilight Zone was an amalgam of two pieces by Constant (Étrange No. 3 and Milieu No. 2). In 1963, Constant founded the contemporary chamber music group ensemble Ars Nova. In 1970, he became musical director of the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française; directed the Paris Opera from 1973-1978; and was Professor of Orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris and at Stanford University. He composed until his death in 2004.

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Thursday, 6 February 2025

Happy Friday Eve, Listeners!

Tomorrow is All-Request Friday, so check out the playlist to see when your (and your fellow listeners’) favorites and dedications are scheduled to broadcast. We are looking forward to it, as always!

 

In this evening’s Thursday Night Opera House, Craig Trompeter conducts the Haymarket Opera Company in the World Premiere recording (2023) of L’Amant Anonyme (The Anonymous Lover) by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Léontine (Nicole Cabell) is a wealthy widow who is getting love letters and gifts from a secret admirer, who is actually her close friend Valcour (Geoffrey Agpalo). Valcour is lower on the social ladder and is afraid to reveal his identity. Will he summon the courage to confess his love and win Léontine’s heart? Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET to find out.

 

On this day in classical music history:

It’s the birthdate of Chilean-American pianist Claudio Arrau in 1903 in Chillán. Arrau’s mother was a pianist who gave him his first lessons. Arrau could read music before he read words and was considered a prodigy; he gave his first concert at the age of five. A year later, he performed for Chilean President Pedro Montt who was impressed enough to provide a ten-year grant for Arrau’s studies in Germany, which he began when he was eight years old at the Stern Conservatory of Berlin under Martin Krause (a student of Franz Liszt). Krause died when Arrau was 15, which marked an end to Arrau’s formal musical studies. In the 1930s, Arrau gave a series of concert cycles encompassing the entire keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Carl Maria von Weber, and Ludwig van Beethoven; he repeated these concerts throughout his career and was considered one of the leading authorities on Beethoven. In 1941, Arrau brought his family to the U.S. and settled in Queens, New York, becoming a dual-citizen in 1979. In 1982, Arrau was the performer on the first released compact disc of classical music (PolyGram, the waltzes of Frederic Chopin). Arrau was very demanding of himself as a pianist: he had an immense repertoire memorized and averaged up to 120 concerts each season from the time he was 40 years old until his early 60s. As a result, he is named among the greatest pianists of all time.

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Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Thank you, Listeners!

We appreciate that you could be spending your time listening to so many other things… so we thank you for your support of community radio, and for spending your time listening to Great Classical Music on The Classical Station.

 

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of British conductor John Michael Pritchard, born in Walthamstow, Essex, in 1921. Pritchard studied violin, piano, and conducting. He began his professional career as a conductor in 1943, when he was named principal conductor for the Derby String Orchestra (until 1951). He began decades of work with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1947, when he was appointed to the festival’s music staff; he also served as chorus master (1949), music counselor (from 1963), principal conductor (1968) and musical director (1969–1978). Pritchard appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; the Royal Opera House; the Vienna State Opera; the Vienna Symphony (1953–1955); in 1957, he was appointed principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and then principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra (1962–1966). Pritchard freelanced for various orchestras throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Asia after leaving the LPO. He also conducted the LPO’s 1973 visit to China, which were the first performances in China by a British orchestra. In 1978, he was named chief guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and then served as chief conductor (1982-1989); he also served as Generalmusikdirektor of the Cologne Opera (1978-1989); music director of La Monnaie (1981); and the first titled music director of the San Francisco Opera (1986- until his death in 1989). 

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Tuesday, 4 February 2024

Good day, Listeners!

 

It’s that time again: Get your requests and dedications in for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program. We can’t wait to see what you pick for this week’s shows!

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

A very Happy Birthday to British pianist Martin Jones, born in 1940 in Witney. Jones was a chorister at the Magdalene College School before studying piano at the Royal Academy of Music; after winning the Dame Myra Hess Award in 1968, he made debuts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and then at Carnegie Hall the same year. He has performed, toured, and recorded with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and was pianist-in-residence at University College, Cardiff (1971-1983). Jones was the first major British artist to give a solo recital in Ekaterinburg, Russia (1996). He is also a regular broadcaster for BBC Radio 3 and has broadcast recitals for Brussels Radio, Dublin’s RTE, DeutschlandRadio in Berlin, and ABC in Australia.

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Monday, 3 February 2025

Welcome to a brand new week, Listeners!

Let’s have a good one and listen to some Great Classical Music together.

This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features recordings of the Bern Symphony Orchestra (founded 1877) performing works by Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, and more, conducted by Vincent la Selva, Peter Maag, and Dmitri Kitayenko. Join us at the symphony at 8pm ET.

 

Tomorrow (Tuesday) on Classical Café, George Leef presents his weekly Legendary Performer feature; this week, it’s Hungarian conductor István Kertész.

 

 

 

And on Wednesday (February 5th between 11am-12pm ET) George will give away a pair of tickets to Carolina Ballet‘s interpretation of Maurice Ravel’s Boléro, choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, in a program that also includes a world premiere ballet by Amy Hall Garner. Tune in and win!

 

 

On this date in classical music history:

It’s the (maybe) birthdate of Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in 1525 in the town of Palestrina (hence ‘da Palestrina’). Documentation of the time puts Palestrina (the composer) in Rome in 1537 as a chorister at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he studied music and literature. He was the organist of the Cathedral of St. Agapito in Palestrina from 1544 to 1551, when Pope Julius III appointed Palestrina him as musical director of the Cappella Giulia (Julian Chapel), the canon choir at St. Peter’s Basilica. Palestrina dedicated his first published compositions (a book of Masses, Missa Ad coenam agni, 1554) to the Pope; it was the first book of masses by a native composer in the Italian states, and one of the more than 100 that Palestrina wrote during his career (along with more than 300 motets). After 1555, Palestrina worked in various churches as organist and choirmaster, like St. John Lateran (where he succeeded Orlande de Lassus, 1555-1560) and Santa Maria Maggiore (1561-1566). He returned to St. Peter’s in 1571 and was there until his death in 1594. Palestrina was extremely famous when he was alive, all over Europe. Palestrina wrote nothing but sacred music and in addition to the masses and motets, he wrote hundreds of other offertories, madrigals, hymns, magnificats, litanies, and lamentations. The Cagliari Music Conservatory “Pierluigi da Palestrina” in Cagliari, Italy, is named in his honor.