This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, August 17-18, 2024
Welcome to the weekend!
Tune in at 6pm ET to hear your requests on the Saturday Evening Request Program, and make sure to put in your favorites and dedications for next week. We love hearing what you’ve chosen for our playlists!
Teatro alla Scala, c. 2022. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Great Sacred Music includes performances by La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus; the Moses Hogan Singers; organist Jane Watts, and works by Bach, Franck, and more. Our featured work this week is Robert Schumann’s Missa Sacra in C Minor, Opus 147. Join Mick Anderson at 8am ET for Great Sacred Music, following Sing for Joy.
And at 7pm ET, Preview! spotlights new releases in the world of classical music, including pianist Yuja Wang’s The Vienna Recital (Deutsche Grammophon) and the Nash Ensemble’s Tchaikovsky & Korngold: String Sextets (Hyperion). We’ll also hear Chrissy Keuper’s interview with pianist Christopher O’Riley about his latest recording, J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I.
In the history of classical music:
Portrait of Antonio Salieri by Joseph Willibrord Mähler, c. 1815. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Italian composer and conductor Antonio Salieri was born on August 18, 1750, in Legnago, then in the Republic of Venice. At the age of 16, Salieri was introduced to Emperor Joseph II by F.L. Gassmann, the emperor’s imperial court composer and music director. Just a few years later, Salieri’s first opera, Le donne letterate, was produced in Vienna (1770), and just a few years after that, Salieri was named court composer and then Hofkapellmeister for the next 36 years. He composed mostly operas and chamber music, then focused on sacred music. He was a much sought-after educator and his students included Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Franz Liszt. There are legends of a complicated relationship between Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but no proof of attempts at violence (the story that Salieri tried to poison Mozart is the basis of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera Mozart et Salieri (1898)).
Austrian tenor opera singer and actor Leo Slezak, c. 1927. (Photo by Ferdinand Schmutzer – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
And Austrian tenor Leo Slezak was born on August 18, 1873, in Maehrisch-Schoenberg, Moravia. Slezak took singing lessons and was an operatic tenor with companies throughout Austria until 1900, when he made his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the roles of Siegfried and Lohengrin. He was made a permanent member of the Vienna State Opera the next year, and then debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in 1909. Slezak was an opera star until the 1930s, when he began a career in German films, eventually appearing in more than 40. He also wrote books, and was the father of actor Walter Slezak and the grandfather of actor Erika Slezak.
Enjoy your weekend, and thank you for supporting The Classical Station!
Friday, August 16, 2024
Today is All-Request Friday, so we’re playing your requests and dedications all day long. If you made a request and would like to know approximately when it will air, take a look at today’s playlist. (Make your requests for next week here.)
On today’s date in the history of classical music:
Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné, Commander of the Legion of Honour, Composer, Conductor, Musician, Organist, Pianist, Winner of the Prix de Rome, c. 1905. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of the Online Portrait Gallery)
Henri Constant Gabriel Pierné was born on this date in Metz in 1963. Pierné was a French organist, conductor, and composer, and really un musicien complet of the late Romantic/early 20th century period. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire with César Franck and Jules Massenet, and he valued the music of his contemporary composers throughout his career. In 1882, he was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Edith, but he worked primarily as an organist until 1898 when he turned all of his attention toward composing and conducting. Pierné wrote operas, songs, and choral works; works for band, piano, and other solo instruments; chamber works, orchestral works, and music for the theatre (including ballets for the Ballet Russes (1923-1934)). He was principal conductor of the Concerts Colonne (1910-1934); on the directing committee of studies at the Paris Conservatoire; an elected member of the Académie des Beaux Arts; and a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur.
Zoltán Kodály, c. 1930s. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Arturo Toscanini, c. 1930s. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica, 1/600338/141416)
And today’s date marks the first performance of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály‘s Symphony at the 1961 Lucerne Festival in Switzerland. Kodály’s only symphony was commissioned by Arturo Toscanini in the 1930s but it wasn’t performed until after Toscanini’s death. Kodály dedicated its first performance and the work itself to Toscanini’s memory.
We thank you for listening and for supporting The Classical Station’s mission to educate through the stories of the music that we all love to love.
Have a wonderful day and have fun listening to your requests!
Thursday, August 15, 2024
Hello, Listeners! A very Good Friday Eve to you all.
This week on Thursday Night Opera House*:
Lamberto Gardelli conducts the Orchestra E Coro Dell’Accademia Di Santa Cecilia Roma in this 1967 recording of Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda (1876). When street-singer La Gioconda (Renata Tebaldi) crosses paths with evil-hearted spy Barnaba (Robert Merrill), they weave a tangled and poisonous web. A masterpiece with innovative orchestration, La Gioconda has remained in the standard operatic repertoire and has inspired composers for nearly 150 years. Join us at 7pm ET for the opera!
*An archival broadcast (2006) by the late Al Ruocchio.
On this date in classical music history:
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, c. 1905. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Today is the birthdate of African-English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor in Croydon, London in 1875. Coleridge-Taylor began playing the violin at the age of five, and joined the choir of a local Presbyterian church, and gained admittance to the Royal College of Music in 1890. While there, he published some anthems and instrumental works. Once he graduated, he paid the bills by conducting and guest-conducting various small orchestras, teaching, playing recitals, and serving as a judge at music festivals. Coleridge-Taylor continued to compose and his Ballade in A Minor (1898) and the Longfellow trilogy for solo voices, chorus, and orchestra of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898), The Death of Minnehaha (1899), and Hiawatha’s Departure (1900) were hits after their initial performances. He also wrote incidental music and a violin concerto (1911). Most of Coleridge-Taylor’s work demonstrated an immense appreciation of African American folk music; he was popular in the U.S. when he toured in 1904 (he was received by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House that year), 1906, and 1910. He struggled financially throughout his career, and sold the rights to some of his more popular works before he was able to benefit from royalties.
Lukas Foss, c. 1995. (Photo by Nancy Lee Katz – Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
And today is the birthdate of American composer, pianist, and conductor Lukas Foss in 1922 in Berlin, Germany. His family escaped to Paris (1933) in the first days of the rise of the Nazi regime and he studied piano and composition, and then moved to the U.S. (1937), where he added conducting. Foss met Aaron Copland within the first year, a composer who had already influenced Foss’s early compositions; he studied under Randall Thompson, Paul Hindemith, Fritz Riener, and Serge Koussevitzky (who hired Foss as pianist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, 1943-1949). In 1945, Foss was the youngest composer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, which was quickly followed by Fulbright grants and an American Academy Fellowship. In 1953, he signed on as professor of composition and conducting at the University of California at Los Angeles, and his dedication to contemporary composers and new music, as well as his own compositions, found a voice with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his own Improvisation Chamber Ensemble. He left L.A. in 1963 as new music director and conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic, where he continued to highlight contemporary composers and founded the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of New York. Foss conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonia (now the Brooklyn Philharmonic, 1970-1991) and many other orchestras throughout the U.S. and Europe, and was composer-in-residence at Harvard, Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Boston University, Tanglewood, and the Manhattan School of Music.
Thank you for supporting The Classical Station, the place to hear great classical music and always with a live announcer. We look forward to hearing your requests tomorrow on All-Request Friday!
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Good Day, Good People!
It’s already the middle of the week, so don’t forget to put in your requests for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program. We are always keen to hear your favorites, so let us know what they are!
On today’s date in the history of classical music:
Vincent Persichetti, c. 1981. (Photo by Peter Schaaf – Courtesy of the Juilliard Archives)
Today is the anniversary of the death of American composer, pianist, and music educator Vincent Persichetti in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1987. Persichetti began piano lessons at age five, and added the organ, double bass, and tuba. By the age of 11 he was paying for his own musical education and performing professionally as an accompanist, radio staff pianist, church organist, and in orchestras. He was appointed choir director for the Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia at the age of 16 and held that position for the next two decades. Persichetti attended the Combs College of Music then headed both of the college’s theory and composition departments, took on a conducting major with Fritz Reiner at the Curtis Institute, and was also a piano major with Olga Samaroff at the Philadelphia Conservatory. He joined the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music in 1947 and became chair of Juilliard’s Composition Department in 1963. Persichetti published more than 120 works in nearly every musical medium, and is famous for his Piano Quintet, works for wind ensembles, and his Symphony No. 6, as well as his Hymns and Responses for the Church Year, which is a standard for church choirs. Among his students at Juilliard were composers Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Peter Schickele, and Leo Brower.
Thank you for listening and for supporting The Classical Station, and please consider making a donation and becoming a member if you haven’t yet taken that step. Your contributions allow us to continue bringing you the finest recordings of the most wonderful music in the world and to sound great doing it. We appreciate your help keeping us on the air since 1978!
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Hello, Listeners!
We at The Classical Station love classical music as much as you do and we are listeners and members, too. Please consider becoming a member of WCPE by supporting both classical music and public radio. Thank you!
On today’s date in the history of classical music:
Sir George Grove, c. 1890s. (Gelatin silver print by Elliott & Fry – Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, NPG x105849)
Today is the birthdate of Sir George Grove in London in 1820, a British civil engineer, lexicographer, editor of Macmillan’s Magazine (1868-1883), and a lover of the arts. He had no formal musical training and was entirely self-taught, but he organized concerts and wrote program notes and was a music critic. In 1873, he compiled Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (published from 1879), which remains the foremost (and continuously evolving) English-language encyclopedia of music. Grove was also the first director of the Royal College of Music, appointed in 1882.
Soprano Kathleen Battle, c. 1999 at Ford’s Theatre, Washington D.C. (Publicity photo – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
And today is the birthdate of American soprano Kathleen Battle in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1948. Battle received a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music where she trained in music education, then began teaching music to 5th and 6th graders in 1971 while she took private voice lessons. Throughout the 1970’s, she performed as a soloist with orchestras and made her opera debut as well. Since then, Battle has performed in concert halls and opera houses all over the world and is still performing in concerts and recitals (she has not performed in opera since a falling out with the Metropolitan Opera in the mid 1990’s). She has won multiple Grammy awards over the last four decades for her recordings, and is celebrated as a diverse and imaginative collaborator.
Have a great day, and thank you for listening to The Classical Station!
Monday, August 12, 2024
Hello, Listeners!
We hope you had a fantastic weekend, and we thank you for tuning in and supporting The Classical Station, where you can hear great classical music anytime and always with a live announcer.
The RPO at Cadogan Hall in London (its home since 2004), c. 2010. (Photo by Mike Quinn – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio, c. 2024.
This week on Monday Night at the Symphony we feature the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1946. The program includes music by Edward Elgar, Cesar Franck, Joe Hisaishi, and more conducted by Charles Dutoit, Sir Thomas Beecham, and featuring a special performance by cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio. Join us for the concert at 8pm ET.
On this date in the history of classical music:
An engraving of Heinrich Ignaz von Biber by Paul Seel, c. 1695. (University Library Leipzig, Portrait Print Collection – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Bohemian composer and violinist Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber was born in 1644 in Wartenberg. Biber was a violin virtuoso and a major contributor to early compositions for violin, especially pieces for solo violin, including the passacaglia of the Mystery Sonatas. Biber also wrote operas, sacred music, and music for chamber ensemble. His music was known and imitated throughout Europe during his lifetime and he was named the best violin composer of the 17th century by music historian Charles Burney in the late 18th century. Prior to 1668, Biber worked at the court of Prince Johann Seyfried von Eggenberg in Graz, and then for the Bishop of Olomouc, Karl II von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, in Kroměříž. In 1670, Karl II sent Biber to negotiate with instrument maker Jacob Stainer for new instruments for the Kapelle, but Biber didn’t make it, deciding instead to enter employment with the Archbishop of Salzburg, Maximilian Gandolph von Kuenburg. He lived in Salzburg for the rest of his life, attaining a number of titles and honors, including Kapellmeister in 1684 and a nobility title (Biber von Bibern) from Emperor Leopold I in 1690.
Enjoy your day, Listeners! We’ll see you tonight at the concert.