This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, 4-5 October 2025
We made it to the weekend, Listeners! Let us accompany whatever you have planned.
Join us at 1pm ET for Saturday On Point, our weekly spotlight on classical music for dancers on the stage. This week’s featured ballet is Raymonda by Alexander Glazunov.
At 6pm ET, Haydn Jones has your requests and dedications on the Saturday Evening Request Program.
Here’s the playlist
Make requests and dedications for next week
Start your sacred Sunday morning at 7:30am ET with Sing For Joy from St. Olaf College, followed at 8am ET by James Steelmon and Great Sacred Music, featuring Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) for baritone cantor, mixed chorus, and orchestra.
And at 6pm ET, Preview! features new and recent releases in the world of classical music, including a brand-new recording of cellist Raphael Wallfisch and pianist Ed Spanjaard performing the Cello Sonata in A minor by Henriette Hilda Bosmans.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
A concert at le Conservatoire de Paris by P. S. Germain, c. 1843. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
French composer and music historian François-Louis Perne was born October 4, 1772, in Paris. Perne’s musical training began in childhood with his tenure in the choir of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie. When he was 20, he joined the chorus of the Opéra National de Paris as a tenor; in 1799 he was appointed as a contrabassist in the opera orchestra. Perne was appointed professor of harmony at the Conservatoire de Paris in 1811 and served as the conservatory’s director a few years later. His compositions included mostly sacred and secular works for voice and chorus and he was a noted historian, specializing in early music.
German pianist and composer Eduard Franck was born October 5, 1817, in Breslau. Felix Mendelssohn was a family friend and soon became Franck’s private music tutor in Düsseldorf and then Leipzig. Franck gained a reputation as both a talented performing pianist and a teacher. He was exceptionally critical of his own compositions and as a result, few of his works were published; regardless, Franck was admired by his contemporaries, including Robert Schumann, and the works that survive are chamber compositions.
Friday, 3 October 2025
It’s All-Request Friday, All!
Join us to hear listener requests and special dedications all day today and again tomorrow evening on the Saturday Evening Request Program.
What’s on the playlist?
I want to make a request for next week’s shows!
On this date in the history of classical music:
L’Appartement du Roi at Versailles. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of French violinist and composer Antoine Dauvergne (also D’Auvergne) at Clermont-Farrand in 1713. Dauvergne’s father was the bandleader at Clermont and the young Dauvergne’s first music teacher. In 1739, Dauvergne moved to Paris for his formal education and musical training and soon after joined the musicians of the King and the Opera. Dauvergne is famous for developing the dramatic opera in France and wrote 15 operas during his lifetime, along with 15 motets; trios for two violins and bass; violin sonatas; and two sets of symphonies in four parts. From 1755 until 1790 (when he retired), Dauvergne served as composer to the king (master of the Chambre du roi); master of the orchestra; conductor of the Opera and director of the Concert Spirituel (among the first series of public concerts in classical music history), and is legendary in the development of classical music at the court at Versailles as both a performer and a composer.
Thursday, 2 October 2025
A very merry Friday Eve to all of you, Listeners!
Join us as we celebrate with Thursday Night Opera House, featuring the 1998 recording of Antonín Dvořák’s Rusalka, a tragic opera based on the legend of the water nymph (Renée Fleming) who falls in love with a human prince (Ben Heppner). In order to be with him, Rusalka must strike a bargain with the witch Ježibaba (Dolora Zajick), with perilous and tragic consequences. Sir Charles Mackerras conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET.
On this day in classical music history:
Kenneth Leighton in a photo by his son, Robert Leighton, c. 1981. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of British pianist and composer Kenneth Leighton in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1929. When he was a young child, Leighton’s parents recognized that he was musically precocious; they enrolled him in the choir at Wakefield Cathedral, where the staff highly encouraged his development and helped his parents obtain a piano. As a result, Leighton was already composing works for solo piano and voice and piano in primary school (including his first published work, Sonatina Op. 1a). He gained the Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music in piano performance when he was 16 and won a State scholarship to study Classics and Music at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he was noticed by composers Gerald Finzi and Ralph Vaughan Williams. Leopold Stokowski premiered Leighton’s overture Primavera Romana, Op. 14, with the Royal Philharmonic in 1951. The same year, Leighton moved to Rome to continue his music studies, then returned to teach for short periods at the Royal Marines School of Music; the University of Leeds; the University of Edinburgh; and Oxford University as Fellow in Music of Worcester College. He returned to Edinburgh in 1970 as Reid Professor of Music and held the post until his death in 1988. His compositions include church and choral works; pieces for piano, organ, cello, oboe and other instruments; award-winning chamber music, concerti, and symphonies; and an opera (Columba).
Wednesday, 1 October 2025
Welcome to Wednesday and a new month. Let’s get it going with some great classical music.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Sylvano Bussotti in a self-portrait, c. 1990. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Italian composer, painter, designer, writer, and opera director/manager (aka Renaissance man) Sylvano Bussotti, born in Florence in 1931. Bussotti was a violin prodigy who studied at the Florence Conservatory, but World War II interrupted his graduation so he continued to study composition on his own and privately in Paris with Max Deutsch. Bussotti was a leader of Italy’s avant-garde artistic movement as a composer, artist, and writer, and was highly influenced by the music of Anton Webern and John Cage and by the artistic synergy of sound and vision. His career included artistic directorships of La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini Festival, La Scala, and the music section of the Venice Biennale; educational roles at the Academy of Fine Arts in L’Aquila,the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, the Royan Festival, and the Fiesole School of Music; and he visited the U.S. and Berlin on invitations from the Rockefeller Foundation and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for the Ford Foundation. He was also a film director, actor, and singer, and he wrote many of the libretti for his operas.
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
The Classical Station has been your home for great classical music since 1978.
Please help keep this wonderful music accessible to people all over the planet by donating here,
or by texting CLASSICAL to 707070.
Thank you so much for all of your support over the years!
On this date in classical music history:
David Oistrakh, c. 1972. (Press photo by ANEFO – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Soviet Russian violin and viola prodigy and superstar, and conductor David Oistrakh, born in Odessa in 1908. Oistrakh’s public performance debut was at the age of six in 1914; he was admitted to Odessa Conservatory at fifteen and graduated three years later. Not long after, Oistrakh appeared as a soloist in Kiev and in Leningrad with the Philharmonic Orchestra. He moved to Moscow (1927) and performed regularly and joined the faculty of Moscow Conservatory in 1934 (Gidon Kremer, Yulia Brodskaya (who became one of his teaching assistants), and his son, Igor Oistrakh, were among his students). He was a member of the Oistrakh Trio from 1940-1963 with cellist Sviatoslav Knushevitsky and pianist Lev Oborin, and was instrumental in premiering new works by fellow Soviet composers like Aram Khachaturian, Sergei Prokofiev, and Dmitri Shostakovich (who became a close friend). Oistrakh wasn’t allowed to perform outside of the Soviet Union during WWII, but he continued teaching and he performed for soldiers on the front lines, including a famous performance in Stalingrad as bombs rained down on the city during the Battle of Stalingrad. After the war, Oistrakh traveled and performed throughout Europe and the U.S. and began developing his career as a conductor. He was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1942; the People’s Artist of the USSR in 1953; the Lenin Prize in 1960; and the asteroid 42516 Oistrakh is named in honour of him and his son, violinist Igor Oistrakh. He was also a multiple Grammy Award Winner and was an inductee into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003.
Monday, 29 September 2025
Welcome to a new week, filled with wonderful music. Join us.
Vince Tillona will be with you at 7pm ET with the warmth of vinyl on Drop the Needle, featuring recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21, and Death and Transfiguration by Richard Strauss.
And at 8pm ET, Monday Night at the Symphony features recordings of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutoit and Kent Nogano. See you at the symphony!
On Tuesday, tune into Classical Café with George Leef for this week’s Legendary Performer:
American pianist Earl Wild.
And on Wednesday (between 11am and noon ET), George will give away tickets to see Burning Coal Theatre’s production of the musical smash hit Once.
Tune in to win!
On this date in classical music history:
Michele Esposito in a 19th century portrait by Sarah Purser. (In the collection of Queen’s University Belfast – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Italian pianist, composer, and conductor Michele Esposito at Castellammare di Stabia in 1855. As a child, Esposito was admitted to the music conservatory in Naples as a piano and composition student. He landed the position of chief professor of pianoforte at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin in 1882 and remained in the post for the next 40 years. While he was there, he founded and conducted the Dublin Orchestral Society in 1898 (the orchestra disbanded in 1914); conducted some performances of the London Symphony Orchestra; and also performed as a pianist. Esposito also co-founded the music publishing company C.E. Edition. Throughout, he was a composer of orchestral and chamber works; vocal and choral works, including lots of songs; musicals for the stage; and compositions for solo piano.