This Week at The Classical Station

This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper


Saturday and Sunday, July 27-28, 2024

The pipe organ inside the Salt Lake Tabernacle at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, c. 2022. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

This week, Great Sacred Music includes performances by the Tabernacle Choir, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and organist Gerald Gifford, with compositions by Michael Praetorius, Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach, and more. The featured work is Messe brève in G Minor by Léo Delibes. Join Mick Anderson on Sunday at 8am Eastern, right after Sing for Joy.

And Preview! spotlights new releases from the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, lutenist Max Hattwich, and Dylan and Demian Baraldi, and Nicholas Canellakis and Michael Stephen Brown of the Canellakis-Brown Duo speak with Rob Kennedy about their new recording, “(b)romance.”

Join us at 6pm Eastern.

Caricature of Antonio Vivaldi, pen and ink on paper by Pier Leone Ghezzi, 1723; in the Codex Ottoboni, Vatican Library, Rome. The inscription below the drawing reads, “Il Prete rosso Compositore di Musica che fece L’opera a Capranica del 1723” (“The red priest, composer of music who made the opera at Capranica [College in Rome] of 1723”). (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

On these dates in classical music history:

Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi died in Vienna on July 27, 1741. Vivaldi was a popular composer throughout Europe during his lifetime but after his death, much of his work was ignored and fell into obscurity until it was rediscovered in the 20th century. Vivaldi wrote more than 500 concertos, the majority for solo instruments and strings (about 230 are specifically for violin), as well as sinfonias, sonatas, and chamber music. He also composed quite a bit of sacred choral music and more than 40 operas. 

Portrait of Enrique Granados, c. 1914. (Agence de presse – Courtesy of Meurisse Bibliothèque nationale de France via Wikimedia Commons)

Pianist and composer Enrique Granados was born July 27, 1867, in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. He studied piano in Barcelona with Francisco Jurnet and Joan Baptista Pujol, then went to Paris to study with Charles-Wilfrid de Bériot in 1887. Granados won a fair amount of money (500 pesetas, about $1900 U.S. dollars, today) in a 1903 competition organized by the Madrid Royal Conservatory, with his Allegro de concierto, Op. 46 for solo piano. His success in that competition made him a household name in Spain. His piano suite Goyescas (six pieces inspired by paintings of Francisco Goya) was so successful that he expanded it into an opera that premiered in New York in 1916. Following that premier, Granados played a recital for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson at the White House. It was his final performance: Granados and his wife were killed on the return journey to Europe when a German u-boat sank their ship in the English Channel. 

Kenneth Alwyn, c. 1985. (Photo by Robin Adler, FRSA – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

English conductor, composer, and writer Kenneth Alwyn Wetherell was born July 28, 1925, in Croydon, London. Known professionally as Kenneth Alwyn, he attended the Royal Academy of Music as a student of voice, viola, and organ. He was conductor with the Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet and the Royal Ballet, toured extensively as a conductor throughout the 1950s, and served as principal conductor for the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in the 1960s. In 1958, he was invited to conduct the BBC Concert Orchestra and went on to work with all of the BBC orchestras and the BBC Music Advisory Committee. Alwyn was also musical director for many premieres and cast recordings of Broadway and original British musicals and had a classical recording career that began in 1958 with the London Symphony Orchestra.  

Thank you for listening and for supporting The Classical Station! Enjoy the music and the weekend.


Friday, July 26, 2024

Hello, Listeners!

There’s a ticket giveaway on the horizon, courtesy of the Vivace Music Foundation and the Vivace International Music Festival! Between 11am and 12pm Eastern on Wednesday, July 31, George Leef (host of Classical Café) will be giving away a pair of tickets to see two acclaimed soloists performing together: Pianist Marc-André Hamelin and violinist James Ehnes will team up for a program of Szymanowski, Fauré, and Beethoven on August 3 at 7:30pm Eastern at the Wilson Center in Wilmington, NC. Tune in for your chance to win!

Today is All-Request Friday, so we’re playing your favorites all day long (and tomorrow from 6pm to midnight Eastern on the Saturday Evening Request Program). You can find out when your request is playing by clicking this link.

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

Serge Koussevitzky (center) with Leonard Bernstein (left) and composer Lukas Foss (right) celebrating Koussevitzky’s 74th birthday at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, c. 1948. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Russian-American conductor and double-bass virtuoso Serge Koussevitzky was born in 1874 in Vishny Volochyok, Tver Governorate (now Tver Oblast), Russia. His parents were musicians and taught him to play violin, cello, piano, and trumpet. He was 14 when he entered the Musico-Dramatic Institute of the Moscow Philharmonic Society to study music theory and double bass, at which he excelled, earning a spot in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra and eventually eclipsing his own teacher (Joseph Ramboušek) as principal bassist. He made his debut as a conductor in 1908 with the Berlin Philharmonic; founded his own orchestra and opened a publishing firm in 1909 (Éditions Russes de Musique, which published and championed the works of Sergei Rachmaninov, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Nikolai Medtner); and eventually left Russia for Paris, then the U.S. He was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1924-1949); founded the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, Massachusetts (1940); and created the Koussevitzky Music Foundations (1942). Koussevitzky’s support for composers and musicians is still being celebrated, and there are some big festivities scheduled for this weekend at Tanglewood.

When you donate to The Classical Station, you support classical music AND public radio and we thank you. Enjoy the weekend!


Thursday, July 25, 2024

Listeners, it’s Friday Eve!

“Gathering around a score” (by Charles Baude after Albert Aublet) shows Jules Massenet rehearsing Manon with American soprano Sibyl Sanderson in Pierre Loti’s drawing room (Pierre Loti seems to be shown either by the piano or on the stairs). The original painting was shown at the 1888 Salon. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

That means that Thursday Night Opera House is on today’s menu. Michel Plasson conducts les Choeurs et Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse in Jules Massenet’s Manon. The high-spirited Manon is being sent to a convent when she encounters the Chevalier des Grieux and immediately falls heads-over-heels in love. She is tempted by a life of luxury, but the temptation soon spirals into tragedy. Ah, the drama of opera! Join Dr. Jay Pierson for the performance at 7pm Eastern.

It also means that tomorrow is All-Request Friday, so we’ll be spinning your favorites all day long (and from 6pm to midnight Eastern on the Saturday Evening Request Program). Tune in for the requests made by your fellow listeners and follow the links to put in your requests for next week!

On this date, two premiers of note (both in 1937):

Aaron Copland by candlelight, studio in the Berkshires, c. 1946. (Photo by Viktor Kraft – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

In 1936, the Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) commissioned composer Aaron Copland to write an orchestral work specifically for the network. The work’s original title, Music for Radio: Saga of the Prairie, was the result of a contest to name the piece (Copland renamed it Prairie Journal in 1968). It premiered in a radio broadcast on July 25, 1937, with Howard Barlow conducting the CBS Radio Orchestra. It was one of Copland’s first works depicting the American West and the original score is available for viewing via the Library of Congress.

Samuel Barber, c. 1944. (Photo by Carl Van Vechten – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

And this date marks the first time that a symphonic work by an American composer was performed at the Salzburg Festival: Samuel Barber‘s Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (also known as First Symphony (in One Movement)) was performed at the July 25 opening concert of the 1937 Salzburg Festival by the Vienna Philharmonic, with Arthur Rodziński conducting. Rodziński was a big fan of Barber’s work and had already conducted three performances of the symphony earlier that year with the New York Philharmonic. 

And just for fun, a photo of the two composers together:

Aaron Copland with Samuel Barber and Gian-Carlo Menotti, Bernardsville, N. J., c. 1945. (Photo by Viktor Kraft – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Tomorrow, watch this space and our social media pages (Facebook / Instagram / X) for information about upcoming ticket giveaways. In the meantime, tune into The Classical Station for the most wonderful music in the world!


Wednesday, July 24, 2024

A good day to you, Dear Listeners!

We’ve heard from a lot of new members over the last week who have helped The Classical Station celebrate our 46th anniversary. We welcome you to the family and thank you SO MUCH for the support that keeps us broadcasting and sounding great. If you’re already a member or are just waiting for that special moment to donate, consider a sustaining membership; your automatic donation gives you the satisfaction of continually supporting the station you love and allows us to budget for our needs. In addition to the wonderful music you hear and the knowledge that a real, live announcer is at the microphone, there are other benefits to being a member of The Classical Station. Check those out here!

Today, our spotlight on this date in classical music history is brought to you by the letter “A”, as in “alliteration”.

Adolphe Adam by Nicolas Eustache Maurin, c. 1840. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département Musique – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Lithograph of ballerina Carlotta Grisi in Giselle (artist unknown), c. 1841. (From The Romantic Ballet in Paris by Ivor Guest – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It’s the birthdate of French composer Adolph Charles Adam in Paris in 1803. Adam received his earliest music education from his father (pianist and composer Jean Louis Adam), but he learned to play piano by ear and said later that he never developed a fluency in sight-reading. When he was 17, he enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, studying organ with François Benoist, counterpoint with Anton Reicha, and composition with Adrien Boieldieu. He went on to write more than 70 operas with many achieving popularity at the time (especially Le chalet (1834), a one-act opéra-comique staged more than 1000 times in Paris over the next forty years), but he is perhaps best known for his music for the ballet Giselle and for his Cantique de Noël (Christmas carol), “Minuit, chrétiens!“, known in English as “O Holy Night“.

Adele Addison, c. 1955. (Photo by Carl Van Vechten – Courtesy of Library of Congress)

And American soprano Adele Addison Berger was born on this day in 1925 in Harlem, New York. Addison studied voice at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood, and the Juilliard School. In 1959, she premiered Francis Poulenc’s Gloria with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and sang the role of Bess (played by Dorothy Dandridge) in the film version of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, and she premiered Lukas Foss’s Time Cycle with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962. Addison sang with the New England Opera and the New York City Opera, and performed and recorded with a number of major orchestras. Her repertoire spanned from the Baroque to 20th century works, though she preferred performing German lieder, spirituals, and art songs in recitals and concerts. Addison also taught voice for more than 35 years (soprano Dawn Upshaw is among her former students) at SUNY at Stony Brook, Eastman School of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Manhattan School of Music. She released her last album at the age of 90: Debussy, Poulenc, Vaughan Williams, Honegger & Barber: Orchestral Works (2015).


Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Hello, Classical Music Lovers!

 

The Classical Station has some exciting ticket giveaways on the horizon, so watch this space and our social media pages (Facebook / Instagram / X) for more information (and visit our Arts Calendar for a few hints).

 

On this day in classical music history:

Maestro Walter (at the piano) and his brother Roberto, c. unknown, but probably mid-1970s. (Photo courtesy of Theatro Municipal de Niterói)

This is the birthdate of Brazilian pianist, composer, and conductor Walter Burle Marx in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1902. He studied piano with Henrique Oswald (head of the Instituto Nacional de Música in Rio de Janeiro), then spent the 1920s studying piano, orchestration, and instrumentation in Berlin, Germany, and as a conducting student in Basel, Switzerland. He returned to Brazil in 1930 and debuted as conductor with the Orchestra of the Musical Center of Rio de Janeiro and founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro the next year. Throughout the 1930s, Burle Marx taught, toured, recorded with the State Orchestra of Berlin, and conducted the Hamburg, Munich, and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras (among others). He conducted the Washington National Symphony in 1935 and decided to settle in the U.S. and focus on his own compositions. He spent the rest of his life teaching, composing, and conducting in Brazil and the U.S., and was a professor at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1952 to 1977. The Burle Marx Music Society was founded in 1987 to promote his music and other Brazilian and Pan-American composers and musicians.

Ava June as Elizabeth I in Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana at the English National Opera, c. 1970s. (Photo courtesy of ENO)

And it’s the birthdate of English soprano Ava June (born Ava June Wiggins) in 1931 in London. She was a principal soprano with Sadler’s Wells Opera Company from 1956 to 1963; a company principal with the English National Opera from 1970 to 1983: and a guest artist with a number of other companies, including the Welsh National Opera, the Phoenix Opera, and the San Francisco Opera. June’s final performance was in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier in 1983. She retired the next year, going on to teach voice in several capacities (including a professorship at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England) and to direct opera productions for Wilmslow Opera and the Carl Rosa Opera Company. 

All of us at The Classical Station celebrate the history of music and musical talent every single day. It is our mission to educate and nurture our listeners and to actually improve lives by sharing this wonderful art form, and we take that mission seriously. Help support us in this endeavor by becoming a member of The Classical Station with a one-time gift OR with a sustaining donation. With your support, we all win!


Monday, July 22, 2024

Good day, Good Listeners!

Lucerner Sinfonieorchester (Lucerne Symphony Orchestra), Switzerland’s oldest symphony orchestra, established in 1805.

This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1805. Conductor James Gaffigan and current Music Director Michael Sanderling lead the LSO through selections by Sergei Rachmaninov, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, plus a special performance by pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja. The concert begins at 8pm Eastern. Join us!

Portrait photo of Julius Stockhausen, c. late 19th century. (Courtesy of Bergen Public Library, Norway, via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is the birthdate of French concert director and baritone Julius Stockhausen in 1826 in Paris, France. In his early years, Stockhausen became a proficient pianist, organist, violinist, and cellist. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1845 to study piano and voice and then followed his voice teacher Manual Garcia to the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1949. Stockhausen was quickly recognized as a remarkable baritone, and when Clara Schumann met him in 1854, she praised him as such. He was the first to perform entire song cycles by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, accompanied by pianists including Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. He went on to serve as conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic Society and Singakademie from 1862 to 1869. Stockhausen was appointed head teacher of voice at the Hoch Conservatoire in Frankfurt not long after Clara Schumann accepted an appointment there (1878), and he founded his own school (1880) as well.

Eve Beglarian. (Photo by JW Photography via https://evbvd.com/)

 

And today is the birthday of contemporary American composer, performer, and audio producer Eve Beglarian in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1958. Much of her chamber, choral, and orchestral music has been commissioned and performed by groups including The Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and The Paul Dresher Ensemble. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts honored her with the Robert Rauschenberg Award in 2015. 

We appreciate your support of The Classical Station so much. Watch our pages on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and X) and this space later in the week for information about some upcoming ticket giveaways!