This Week at The Classical Station

This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper

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Saturday and Sunday, 22-23 February 2025

It’s the weekend, Listeners! We are honored to provide the soundtrack to all of your weekend plans.

 

Saturday:

This week’s Saturday On Point features the ballet La Bayadère by Ludwig Minkus, along with other selections from the ballet stage. Join Peggy Powell at 1pm ET.

 

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

 

Sunday:

Spend your sacred Sunday mornings with Great Sacred Music and performances by Branford Marsalis, the Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and the ensemble Cappella Coloniensis, with works by John Rutter, Adolphus Hailstork, George Frederic Handel, and more. Our featured work is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 181, Leichtegesinnte Flattergeister. Join us at 8am ET, right after Sing for Joy.

 

And tune in at 6pm ET for Preview! with Tom Hayakawa and some recent releases from the classical music world.

 

On these dates in the history of classical music:

Danish violinist, organist, composer, and conductor Niels Wilhelm Gade was born in Copenhagen on February 22, 1817. Gade’s father made instruments and Gade was expected to carry on the trade, but he was a skilled musician even as a child and his parents couldn’t deny his talent. Although he took some early violin lessons, he was largely self-taught, especially as a composer; nevertheless, his first professional position was as a violinist in the Royal Danish Orchestra and the orchestra performed his first compositions, including the overture Efterklange af Ossian (Echoes of Ossian). Felix Mendelssohn conducted the premiere of Gade’s Symphony No. 1 in Leipzig in 1843, which led to Gade’s international fame and garnered him a royal fellowship as both a teacher in the Leipzig Conservatory and assistant conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. He was forced to return to Denmark in 1848 when the nation was at war with Prussia, but he was named director of the Copenhagen Musical Society (Musikforeningen) and organist at Holmen Church in Copenhagen, both tenures that lasted until his death in 1890. Gade was also joint director of the Copenhagen Conservatory. He is regarded as one of the leading Danish musicians and composers of the Danish Golden Age (19th century) and his influence on Danish music can be heard in the music of his students Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen, and others.

American composer Elinor Remick Warren was born February 23, 1900, in Los Angeles, California, to musical parents: her father was a singer and her mother a pianist and former student of Franz Liszt. Warren trained early as both a pianist and a composer, and she had her first works published before she had graduated from high school. She had a year of college in California before heading to New York for private composition studies and for work as an accompanist for singers, and she was soon in demand as a virtuoso pianist and a composer. Warren performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and made recordings before composing her largest works to date, a choral and orchestral work called The Harp Weaver and her symphonic The Legend of King Arthur. She wrote more than 200 works, many of which were performed and well-known during her lifetime.

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Friday, 21 February 2025

Happy Friday, Listeners!

 

It’s All-Request Friday (10am-10pm ET) and then we’ll play your favorites and dedications 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.

 

HEADS-UP: Ticket Giveaway

Next Wednesday (February 26th between 11am-12pm ET) on Classical Café, George Leef will give away a pair of tickets to see the North Carolina Symphony perform The Ring Without Words, which features orchestral works from the four operas that make up Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung): Das Rheingold (The Rhinegold), Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods).

Tune in and win!

 

On today’s date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of Spanish guitar virtuoso and composer Andrés Segovia in Linares, Jaén, in 1893. Segovia first had lessons in violin and his musical talent was obvious to his uncle and aunt (who raised him). They moved him to Grenada so that he would have access to more musical studies, though in many ways, Segovia was largely self-taught. He soon chose the guitar, but preferred the works of classical composers like Fernando Sor and Francisco Tárrega to the popular flamenco music of the day. His first performances were in Granada and Madrid and included works by Tárrega and his own transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach; he then toured Europe and South America, meeting other musicians and composers who would soon write guitar works specifically for him (Miguel Llobet, Alexandre Tansman, Agustín Barrios, Manuel de Falla, Joaquín Rodrigo, and many others). Segovia performed, recorded, and taught worldwide until the late 1970s; he won the 1958 Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance, Instrumentalist, and his students include guitarists like John Williams, Christopher Parkening, Julian Bream, and many others. He composed dozens of works for guitar, and was celebrated (and sometimes chastised) for advancing guitar technique. Also: The main-belt asteroid 3822 Segovia is named for him.

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Thursday, 20 February 2025

Happy Friday Eve, All!

We hope you’re having a wonderful week and we thank you for spending it with The Classical Station.

 

Tomorrow is All-Request Friday, so check out the playlist to see what your fellow listeners have asked to hear and then make your requests and special dedications for next week right here.

 

This evening’s Thursday Night Opera House is the 1989 recording of Seiji Ozawa conducting l’Orchestre National de France, les Choeurs de Radio France, and legendary soloists in Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes D’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann). Hoffmann (Placido Domingo) tells stories of his past loves as he and his rival Lindorf (Andreas Schmidt) pass the time in a tavern, waiting for the arrival of the opera singer they both love. Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET for this classic and colorful opera.

 

On this day in classical music history:

It’s the birthdate of American soprano Nadine Conner in 1907 in Compton, California. Conner and her six siblings grew up on a farm and on stage: their parents built their own theater and staged shows of all kinds. When Conner was a teenager, she was diagnosed with pulmonary disease and was advised to build her lung strength by studying classical singing; her natural talent was obvious and she studied under singers in Los Angeles and then New York City. Conner made her radio debut in 1933 on California Melodies and The Voice of Firestone and then went on tour with Gordon MacRae. By 1940, she was making her professional debuts with the Los Angeles Opera and then the Metropolitan Opera, and she performed regularly in opera houses throughout Europe and the U.S. and recorded for several record labels until her retirement in 1960.

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Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Hello, Listeners!

You’ve been spending time with us since 1978,

listening to live announcers who bring you really Great Classical Music.

We truly appreciate your support, and we ask those of you who have never donated before to consider becoming a member and helping us continue our commitment to fantastic recordings of some of the world’s most beautiful music. If you’re a business owner, become a Business Sponsor. You’ll reach hundreds of thousands of listeners and you can also match the donations of your employees when they support The Classical Station. Want to know more? Information is here and/or reach out to our Business Support specialist.

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of Welsh composer Grace Mary Williams in 1906 in Barry, Glamorgan. Williams had childhood training as a violinist, pianist, and composer, playing piano trios with her father and brother, accompanying her father’s church choir, and studying composition in school. She won a scholarship to what was then University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (and is now Cardiff University) and then attended the Royal College of Music as a student of Ralph Vaughan Williams (Imogen Holst and Elizabeth Maconchy were among her fellow students). As she worked on her compositions, Williams worked as a teacher in London (from 1932) and wrote some of her best-known works during World War II, including her Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes; her First Symphony; and Sea Sketches for string orchestra. She returned to Wales in 1945 and composed full-time. Along with her orchestral compositions, Williams was the first British woman to score a feature film (Blue Scar, 1949) and she wrote an opera (The Parlour) and other vocal works, often combined with other instruments. Williams is still considered one of Wales’ finest composers and was especially noted for her sensitivity and her humility; she turned down a nomination for the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music.

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Tuesday, 18 February 2024

Hello, Listeners!

We’re taking your requests and dedications for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program, so get’em in early! We’re always excited to see what’s on the playlists for us for those shows, and your fellow listeners appreciate hearing what you like, too.

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of German-British baritone, pianist, composer, and conductor Sir George Henschel (Georg Isidor Henschel), born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) in 1850. Henschel made his public debut at the piano at the age of 9 and regularly performed as a pianist, then studied voice at the Leipzig Conservatory and became an accomplished baritone who sometimes sang to his own accompaniment. He performed consistently and made early and regular recordings for the Columbia Graphophone Company into the late 1920s. In 1881, Henschel married American soprano Lilian June Bailey and the two performed together throughout the U.S. and Europe into the 1880s, when he became the first conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1881); began the London Symphony Concert series (1886); was the first conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (1893); and taught voice classes at the Royal College of Music and the Institute of Musical Art in New York. As a composer, Henschel was highly influenced by his close friend Johannes Brahms and he wrote songs and choral music, an opera, and orchestral works.

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Monday, 17 February 2025

A good day and a good week to you, Listeners!

Come spend your time with us and some Great Classical Music.

This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (founded 1896) and works by Antonin Dvorak, Paul Dukas, Bedrich Smetana, and more conducted by Antonio de Almeida and Semyon Bychkov. Meet us at the symphony at 8pm ET.

 

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

 

And on Wednesday (February 19th between 11am-12pm ET), George  will give away a pair of tickets to see pianist Michelle Cann, courtesy of Duke Arts.

Tune in for a chance to win!

 

On this date in classical music history:

A very Happy Birthday to Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins, born in 1944 in Penclawdd, Gower. Jenkins had his first music lessons with his father, a schoolteacher, chapel organist, and choirmaster, before studying music at Cardiff University and the Royal Academy of Music, London. Jenkins is well-known for his tenure as leader of the jazz-rock band Soft Machine (1972-1984) and for music used in the advertising industry (like his string quartet Palladio, written in 2009, used in a series of diamond commercials, and also known as Diamond Music). But Jenkins is also lauded for his choral music, including The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace (2000); his Requiem (2005), and his Stabat Mater (2008).