This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, 6-7 December 2025
We have great classical music to go with all your weekend plans.
This weekend:
Join Peggy Powell at 1pm ET for Saturday On Point, our weekly spotlight on classical music for the ballet. This week, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s take on the classic fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, with Neeme Jarvi conducting the Bergen Philharmonic, violinist James Ehnes, and cellist Robert deMaine.
Then at 6pm ET, Haydn Jones has all of your favorites and special dedications on the Saturday Evening Request Program.
Here’s the playlist, and make requests and dedications for next week right here.
Get your sacred Sunday morning started at 8am ET with Great Sacred Music. Your host James Steelmon brings you devotional thoughts accompanied by beautiful sacred works, this week featuring Maurice Durufle’s gorgeous Requiem.
And at 6pm ET, Preview! spotlights the latest classical recordings. This week, recordings of Tempesta di Mare and the Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra with Johann Friedrich Fasch’s Orchestral Suite in E minor and hornist Louis-Philippe Bergeron and pianist Meagan Milatz performing the Horn Sonata in F, Op. 17, by Ludwig van Beethoven.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
Henriëtte Bosmans, c. 1917. (Photo by Jacob Merkelbach – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Dutch pianist and composer Henriëtte Bosmans was born December 6, 1895, in Amsterdam to Henri Bosmans (principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) and pianist Sarah Benedicts. Bosmans had her early and principal training at the piano with her mother and was a piano teacher herself by the time she was 17 years old. She debuted as a concert pianist in 1915 and then gave performances throughout Europe, performing her own compositions and others (including more than 20 concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra alone between 1929 and 1949). Her mother was Jewish, which meant that by 1942, Bosmans was no longer allowed to perform publicly in the Netherlands; she focused on composition, instead, and wrote songs and vocal works, chamber and orchestral works, and pieces for solo piano. In 1951, she was knighted as a member of the Royal Order of Orange-Nassau, and the Henriëtte Bosmans Prize (awarded since 1994 by the Society of Dutch Composers) is named for her.
Hermann Goetz, 19th century engraving. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
And German composer Hermann Goetz was born December 7, 1840, in Königsberg. Goetz was already a composer by the time he had his first piano lesson in 1857. He began his serious studies in mathematics, but switched to piano and composition after a short time and began attending the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. He moved to Switzerland in 1863 and was named city organist of Winterthur. In that role (until 1872), Goetz taught piano and began to make a name as a composer, conductor, and a magazine music critic. He developed tuberculosis in the 1850s, which took an increasing toll on his ability to work until he was forced to stop teaching and performing. He died at age 35 after composing two operas (including Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung, based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew), a symphony, two piano concerti, a violin concerto, quite a bit of chamber music, and a lot of works for piano.
Friday, 5 December 2025
It’s All-Request Friday and we’re playing your requests and special dedications (and we’ll do it again on the Saturday Evening Request Program). Tune in to hear your favorites.
Playlists are here
Make requests/dedications here
On this date in the history of classical music:
Francesco Geminiani in a portrait by Andrea Soldi, c. 1735. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani in 1687 in Lucca, Italy. Geminiani was highly venerated as a performer and composer in his time and was considered an equal to both Handel and Corelli (who was one of his violin teachers). In 1707, he joined the orchestra of the Cappella Palatina of Lucca and then became opera orchestra leader and concertmaster at Naples. In 1714, Geminiani arrived in London and made his living performing as a renowned virtuoso violinist in royal and noble circles (sometimes with Handel as accompanist), teaching students, and composing (his concerti grossi are probably his best-known works). He was the first Italian to be initiated into the Freemasonry when he joined London’s Queen’s Head lodge in 1725. He’s also credited with writing what’s considered an invaluable resource for violinists, his 1751 treatise Art of Playing on the Violin, as well as textbooks for other instruments.
Thursday, 4 December 2025
It’s Friday Eve, All!
We celebrate at 7pm ET with Thursday Night Opera House and the 1971 recording of Sir Colin Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and legendary soloists in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s classic opera buffa, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro).
On this day in classical music history:
Yvonne Minton as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, c. 1976. (Photo by Siegfried Lauterwasser – Courtesy of TheatreHeritage.org.au)
A very Happy Birthday to soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto Yvonne Minton, born in 1938 in Sydney, Australia. Minton studied voice at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and was appearing on radio and television as one of Australia’s leading operatic singers by 1960. She pursued more musical studies in London in 1961 and won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize at the International Vocal Competition in the Netherlands as best contralto the same year. She was soon performing with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and went on to appear and record with most of the major European and American orchestras in operas and concert appearances.
Wednesday, 3 December 2025
Listeners:
The Classical Station has been listener-supported since 1978 and there’s no way we could tell you how much we appreciate your assistance in making great classical music accessible to listeners around the world.
As we near the end of 2025 and you plan your year-end giving, please consider a donation to help keep this wonderful music on the air and online.
We thank you so much for your support.
On this date in the history of classical music:
It’s the birthdate of Spanish Catalan composer Antonio Soler (born Antonio Francisco Javier José Soler Ramos and later known as Padre Soler) in Olot, Catalonia, in 1729. Soler was six years old when he entered the Escolania (boys’ choir) of the Monastery of Montserrat where he studied music. In 1746 (he was 17), he was appointed Director of Music in Lleida (as well as La Seu d’Urgell, according to some sources). Soler was 23 when he was admitted to the Monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial in Castile as a novice; after taking holy orders only a year later and already renowned as an extremely talented composer and organist, Padre Soler served at the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial near Madrid, where he completed his music studies under Domenico Scarlatti (unconfirmed) and José de Nebra (confirmed) and became a teacher, himself. He was appointed music teacher for the Infantes Antonio and Gabriel (sons of Carlos III, King of Spain) and went on to write more than 500 compositions, including keyboard sonatas (many of them for the princes), sacred vocal works (including masses and motets), concerti for keyboard, solo works for organ, and quintets for organ and strings. He also wrote a treatise on music theory: Llave de la modulación (The Key to Modulation).
Tuesday, 2 December 2025
Every hour of every day, The Classical Station has great classical music to accompany whatever you’ve got going on.
Tomorrow, tune into Classical Café with George Leef for a chance to win a family pack of tickets to see Cary Ballet Company’s production of The Nutcracker. Tune in and win!
On this date in the history of classical music:
John Barbirolli, c. 1965. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of English cellist and conductor Giovanni Battista Barbirolli in London in 1899 (he began using “John” in 1922). Barbirolli’s father and grandfather had been violinists in the orchestra of La Scala, Milan, and the young Barbirolli also became a student of violin, though he quickly switched to cello at the behest of his grandfather (the young man would apparently wander while he practiced and his grandfather said he was in everyone’s way). Barbirolli studied cello at the Royal Academy of Music until 1916, then became a freelance orchestra cellist. His first experience as a conductor was as a lance-corporal in the Suffolk Regiment in the final months of World War One, when a number of professional musicians in the ranks put together an orchestra. Barbirolli went on to conduct the British National Opera company and Covent Garden’s touring company; to succeed Arturo Toscanini as music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1936; to serve as chief conductor of the Houston Symphony from 1961-1967; and to guest conduct, tour, and record with many other orchestras, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. Barbirolli is perhaps best known and beloved as the savior of Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra, which he conducted from the orchestra’s near-dissolution in 1943 until his death in 1970.
Monday, 1 December 2025
A good day to you, Listeners!
It’s a new week and a new month, and we’re filling it with great classical music (plus some holiday favorites).
Wrap yourself in the warmth of vinyl at 7pm ET with Vince Tillona on Drop the Needle. This week’s show features the virtuosity of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the imagery of Ottorini Respighi, and a privately recorded work by Paul Dukas.
At 8pm ET, Monday Night at the Symphony is our weekly spotlight on the world’s great orchestras. This week, we feature recordings of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. See you at the symphony!
On this date in classical music history:
Portrait of Castil-Blaze by Jules Laurens, c. 1841. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of French composer, musicologist, music critic and music editor François-Henri-Joseph Blaze (known as “Castil-Blaze”) in 1784 in Cavaillon, Vaucluse, who remains one of France’s most prolific writers on music and drama. Castil-Blaze studied law in Paris and also music at the Conservatoire de Paris. He spent a large part of his career adapting operas for small, regional productions with the goal of making opera more accessible outside of Paris. Castil-Blaze was best-known as a controversial music critic; his musings were published as Musical Chronicles (and signed, “X.X.X.”) in the Journal des débats until 1832 (his successor was Hector Berlioz), when he joined Le Constitutionnel. He was the first music critic in France who had actually studied music; he also wrote books on music theory, music history, and history of theatre. Musically, Castil-Blaze was mostly an arranger, but he did compose some original work, including sacred vocal works (two masses) and a few chamber pieces (including a wind sextet), and he was credited as one of Beethoven’s music editors.