This Week at The Classical Station

(Musical Evening by Vladimir Egorovic Makovsky, 1906)

I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.

~ John Cage

This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper


Saturday, 19 October and Sunday, 20 October 2024

Hello, Weekend!
We are privileged to be the soundtrack for your plans. Tune in here!

 

Saturday:

Join Haydn Jones at 6pm ET for the Saturday Evening Request ProgramThe playlist can be found here, and you can make requests for next week’s programs here.

Sunday:

This week’s Great Sacred Music includes performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; the Academy of Ancient Music; and bass-baritone Frank Ward, with music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III. Our featured work this week is Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 2 in E Minor for Choir and Winds.

Join guest host Peggy Powell at 8am ET, following Sing for Joy.

©Carolina Ballet

And on Preview!, Emily Moss speaks with Braden Hart, the star of Carolina Ballet’s world-premiere ballet Jekyll & Hyde, and the ballet’s musical composer, Shinji Eshima. We’ll also highlight some of classical music’s most recent releases, including new albums of concerti for piccolo by Antonio Vivaldi and lutist Max Hattwich playing works by Hans Judenkönig.

Join us at 6pm ET for new music and new recordings!

 

On these dates in the history of classical music:

sidonie goossens harp

Sidonie Goossens, c. 1991. (Photo by Nicholas Sinclair – Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG x38828)

British harpist and founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra Sidonie Goossens was born October 19, 1899, in Liscard, Cheshire. Goossens wanted to become an actress but her father, a conductor, encouraged her to study the harp. She was performing publicly by the age of 16, and was 22 when she made her professional debut as the only female performer with the London Symphony Orchestra (1921). She was the first harpist to be broadcast on the radio (1923) and the first to be broadcast on television (1936, with the BBC Television Orchestra). She was a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1930–1980), appointed as Principal Harp by orchestra founder Adrian Boult. She retired from the orchestra in 1980, and gave her last performance at the age 91 as the oldest person to perform at the Last Night of the Proms (1991).

charles ives clara sipprell composer

Charles Ives, c. 1947. (Photo by Clara Sipprell, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

American composer (and insurance actuary) Charles Edward Ives was born in Danbury, Connecticut, on October 20, 1874. His father was a bandleader and music teacher and oversaw Ives’ early musical training. At the age of 12, he was playing organ in a local church, and at 14 the town band performed his first composition (name unknown). In the 1890s, he was already dabbling in dissonance with his composition Song for the Harvest Season; the four parts (voice, trumpet, violin, and organ) were all in different keys. He entered composition studies at Yale University (his Symphony No. 1 was his senior thesis), graduating in 1898 and becoming an insurance clerk and part-time organist in New York City. He founded the Ives & Myrick insurance partnership in 1907 and headed the company until 1930 (the insurance concept of estate planning was his). Due to poor health for most of his life (diabetes, tremors, heart problems), the majority of his compositions were written before 1915 and were unpublished until after his death in 1954; his music only became widely known in his final years. Ives received the Pulitzer Prize (1947) for his Third Symphony (The Camp Meeting), which was composed between 1904 and 1911. 


Friday, 18 October 2024

Happy Friday to you all! It’s All-Request Friday, and we’re playing your favorites and dedications all day and into the night! (And again tomorrow on the Saturday Evening Request Program.) The request programs playlists are here if you’d like to know when yours will air, and if you want to make a request for next week, you can do that here. We love hearing what you’ve chosen!

 

Heads-Up: Next Wednesday (October 23) on Classical Café, George Leef will have a ticket giveaway between 11am-12pm ET for Bewitched, a concert by the Chamber Choir of the North Carolina Master Chorale. Tune in to win!

 

On today’s date in classical music history:

barry mcdaniel baritone opera lyndon kansas

Barry McDaniel in Das Gespenst von Canterville (The Canterville Ghost), c. 1964. (Photo by Siegfried Pilz – Courtesy of United Archives)

It’s the birthdate of American operatic baritone Barry McDaniel, born in Lyndon, Kansas, in 1930. His parents recognized his talent early in his childhood and he entered formal lessons in voice, piano, and percussion when he was nine years old. He gave many performances as a boy soprano soloist in churches and private concerts until his voice changed. McDaniel was a baritone by the time he entered voice studies at the University of Kansas, then the Juilliard School of Music in New York; he graduated from Juilliard with honors and became one of the first young singers to study in Germany on a Fulbright scholarship (1953), attending the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and expanding his repertoire of German and French art songs. His first professional appearance was the same year in a recital in Stuttgart. McDaniel signed his first contract with the Staatstheater Mainz (1954-55), then took a short break to serve in the U.S. Army. From 1957-1959, he was with the Staatsoper Stuttgart and then the opera at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe until 1961, when he was spotted and recruited by Egon Seefehlner, deputy director and talent scout of the Deutsche Oper Berlin; McDaniel was with the company until 1999. He sang 98 roles in 54 premieres and more than 2,100 stage and concert performances over his tenure; in addition, he was a frequent guest performer in opera houses all over Europe, Mexico, and Japan. He made his debut in 1972 with the Metropolitan Opera in seven performances of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. McDaniel was also an oratorio singer and recitalist with a focus on sacred music (especially works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann; lieder (especially Franz Schubert’s song cycles and works by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms); French mélodies by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Francis Poulenc; and songs of modern composers like Aribert Reimann, Anton Webern, and Carl Orff. McDaniel retired in 1999 and spent the rest of his life in Germany; he died in 2018 in Berlin.


Thursday, 17 October 2024

Happy Friday Eve, Listeners!

Tomorrow is All-Request Friday.
Did you make a request for this week? Check out the playlist here to see when it will air.

Want to make a request for next week? You can do that here.

 

This week’s Thursday Night Opera House features the 1994 recording of Marek Janowski conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Rundfunkchor Berlin, and fabulous soloists in what is considered to be the first German romantic opera, Carl Maria von Weber’s hugely successful Der Freischütz (The Marksman or The Freeshooter), set in 17th century Bohemia. Young hunter and apprentice forester Max (Peter Seiffert) is preparing to marry his sweetheart Agathe (Sharon Sweet), but her father Kuno (Anton Scharinger) requires Max to win a marksmanship contest before he’ll allow her to marry. To ensure success, Max becomes the unwitting tool of vengeful forester Kaspar (Kurt Rydl) and the Black Huntsman (aka the Devil), Samiel (Peter Matić). Supernatural events ensue. Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET for the work that made Weber an international opera sensation.

 

On this date in classical music history:

agnesi composer pianist

Maria Teresa Agnesi, c. 1740s. (Museo del Teatro alla Scala (Milan) – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It’s the birthdate of Italian harpsichordist, singer, composer Maria Teresa Agnesi in Milan in 1720. She and her sister Maria Gaetana were educated early in many subjects, including music; the two toured Europe together, Agnesi performing while Maria Gaetana (a mathematics and language prodigy) gave lectures and participated in debates. Agnesi was a beneficiary of the patronage of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress and sovereign of Lombardy, and Duchess Maria Antonia Walpurgis, Princess of Bavaria and Electress of Saxony, who was a gifted performer and composer in her own right. Many of Agnesi’s compositions have been lost and very little of what survives has been recorded, though she is known to have composed throughout her life, mainly for performances in Milan’s ducal theater, and in the noble houses of Germany and Austria. Her works include at least four operas, and a number of instrumental works for harpsichord and voice. 

suzuki violin

Shinichi Suzuki, c. 1967. (Photo by Hiroji Kubota – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

And it’s the birthdate of Japanese violinist, philosopher, composer, and founder of the international Suzuki method of music education Shinichi Suzuki in Nagoya in 1898. As a child, Suzuki worked in his father’s violin factory (now Suzuki Violin Co., Ltd.; his father was the first violin-maker in Japan). When he was 17, he began teaching himself to play the violin by imitating what he heard in recordings. He began formal lessons in his 20s, first in Tokyo, then in Germany. Returning to Japan a few years later, Suzuki formed the Suzuki String Quartet with his brothers and began teaching violin at the Imperial School of Music and the Kunitachi Music School in Tokyo. After World War II, was appointed to teach in a new music school in Matsumoto and developed his famous Suzuki method, teaching violin and classical music to children, even in infancy, using the philosophy of “Talent Education,” the belief that talent can be developed in any child. Some of the first Japanese violinists successfully appointed to western classical music organizations received training from him directly (including Toshiya Eto; Koji Toyoda; Takeshi and Kenji Kobayashi), and many others are students of his method (including Hilary Hahn; Sarah Chang; Anne Akiko Meyers; Leila Josefowicz). Suzuki held honorary doctorates in music from the New England Conservatory of Music and the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 1993.


Wednesday, 16 October 2024

 

Hey, Business-Owners and Decision-Makers! Be one of our Business Sponsors, reach a global audience, AND support your community, public radio, and classical music, all at the same time!

Our loyal listeners could be your loyal customers. Find out more here, or contact WCPE’s business development specialist Mary Moonen.

 

In this week’s Classical Considerations, Matthew Young reviews the recent release of a 1975 recording of Sergiu Comissiona conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Suite. You’ll also be able to hear the recording in its entirety this evening at 7pm ET on The Classical Station!

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

marin alsop conductor violin

Marin Alsop, c. 2007. (Photo by Grant Leighton (edit) – Courtesy of Encyclopædia Britannica)

Happy Birthday to American violinist and conductor Marin Alsop, who was born in 1956 in New York City and has gone on to be “the first” in many ways. Alsop began her studies at the Masters School and studied violin at the Juilliard School’s Pre-College Division; she started her college career as a mathematics major at Yale University, but ended up transferring to Juilliard to study violin, earning a Bachelor (1977) and a Master of Music (1978) and playing with the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet while she worked on her degrees. In the 1980s, Alsop was unable to gain entry to Juilliard’s conducting program, so she founded the New York String Ensemble, the female jazz ensemble String Fever, and the 50-member orchestra Concordia. To say she has been busy since then is an incredible understatement and we won’t try to list everything she’s done: 

Alsop was associate conductor of the Richmond Symphony (VA) from 1988 to 1990; music director of the Eugene Symphony (OR) from 1989 to 1996; and in 1989, she was the outstanding student conductor at the Tanglewood Music Center and was the first woman to win the Koussevitzky Prize; music director of the Long Island Philharmonic (1990); music director of the Oregon Festival of American Music (1992-1996); music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music (1992-2016); first principal conductor, music director, then conductor laureate of the Colorado Symphony (1993-2005); Creative Conductor Chair for the St. Louis Symphony (1994-1996); Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (2002-2008, the first female principal conductor in the orchestra’s history); and the 2003 recipient of both Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year award and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s conductor’s award. 

In 2005, Alsop was the first conductor to receive a MacArthur Fellowship and she became the first woman to head a major U.S. orchestra when she was appointed 12th music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (in 2009, the orchestra extended her contract into 2015, then again through 2021, when she became music director laureate). In 2012, Alsop became the first woman to serve as principal conductor of the São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra (OSESP); the next year, she was the first woman to conduct at the Last Night of the Proms with the OSESP, the first time a Brazilian orchestra had performed at the Proms. She was appointed director of graduate conducting at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University in 2015. She was the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra’s first female chief conductor in 2019; the next year, she became the Ravinia Festival’s inaugural chief conductor, serving until at least 2025. The Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra named Alsop artistic director and chief conductor in 2023; she is the first female conductor named to those posts. This year (2924) is Alsop’s sixth season as Chief Conductor of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and she’ll be the first U.S.-born woman to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic when she debuts with the orchestra in February, 2025. She is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2008); an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society (2014); and artist in residence at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (since 2020). 

(See why we didn’t try to list it all?)


Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Hello, All!

It’s time to put in this week’s requests for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program. Which of your favorites would you like to hear this week? Anyone special you’d like to dedicate it to? Make your requests here.

We’re excited to see your choices!

Tomorrow during Classical Café (between 11am-12pm ET), George Leef will give away tickets for the North Carolina Symphony’s performance of one of classical music’s most famous works, Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Op. 32. Tune in to win!

 

On today’s date in classical music history:

Bernhard Henrik Crusell composer clarinet clarinetist Finland Sweden

Portrait of Bernhard Henrik Crusell, c. 1826. (Johan Gustaf Sandberg – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It’s the birthdate of Finnish clarinetist and composer Bernhard Henrik Crusell in Nystad in 1775. Crusell was the most famous Finnish composer of his time and the best-known prior to Jean Sibelius. He learned to play a friend’s clarinet by ear; his first forays into music studies were as a clarinetist in the Nyland regimental band at the age of eight, then the military band in what is now Suomenlinna, outside Helsinki when he was thirteen. In 1791, he was made principal clarinetist in the Royal Court Orchestra in Stockholm (the court of Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden) and became an accomplished virtuoso. He was able to study in Berlin for a few months under German clarinetist Franz Tausch; the early 1800s took Crusell to Paris for studies at the new Conservatoire de Paris (he also began composing in earnest at this time), and he was ultimately offered a position as first clarinetist with the Théâtre-Italien de Paris. But King Gustav denied Crusell’s request for extended leave and appointed him chief conductor of the bodyguard regiment bands; as a result, Crusell remained with the Royal Court Orchestra until 1833. He was able to leave Sweden enough to perform throughout Europe, England, and Russia, and was a popular performer who was well-received by critics. He composed concertos and chamber works, especially for clarinet; songs for male choir and solo voice; and an opera. He also translated Italian, French, and German operas into Swedish for performances in Sweden, and a Finnish festival for woodwind instruments (Crusell Week) has been held in his honor since 1982.

Peter Phillips tallis scholars gimell records bbc singers conductor

Peter Phillips, c. 2011. (Photo by Valérie Batselaere – Courtesy of The Tallis Scholars)

And a very Happy Birthday to English conductor Peter Phillips in Southampton in 1953. He was educated at Winchester College (1967–71) and St John’s College, Oxford University (Organ Scholar, 1972–75), and then taught at Oxford, Trinity College of Music, and the Royal College of Music in London, where he directed the Chamber Choir. In 1988, he decided to pursue conducting full-time. Phillips says he “got the polyphony bug” in 1973 while studying at Oxford, and subsequently founded the Tallis Scholars, then Gimell Records (1980) to make and publish their recordings. The Tallis Scholars are now recognized as a leading ensemble in renaissance polyphony, though they also record and perform works by modern and contemporary composers like John Tavener, Eric Whitacre, Nico Muhly, and Arvo Pärt. Phillips also collaborates with the BBC Singers (since 2003) and has recorded with El León de Oro; Intrada; Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; and the Danish Radio Choir. He is a founding trustee of the Muze Trust, a musical education charity in Zambia, and has owned and published the Musical Times (the oldest continuously published music journal in the world) since 1995.


Monday, 14 October 2024

Hello, Listeners! Welcome to a brand new week of great classical music at The Classical Station.

 

Davies Symphony Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.

This week, Monday Night at the Symphony features recordings by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, including music by Antonín Dvořák, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, conducted by Edo de Waart, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Herbert Blomstedt. Join us for the symphony at 8pm ET.

 

Each Tuesday on Classical Café, George Leef profiles a Legendary Performer. This week it’s lutenist and guitarist Julian Bream, so tune in tomorrow for classical music knowledge! 

And on Wednesday (October 16), he’ll have a ticket giveaway between 11am-12pm ET for the North Carolina Symphony’s performance of The Planets, Op. 32, by Gustav Holst.

 

On this date in classical music history:

Alexander Zemlinsky Arnold Schoenberg prague composer

Alexander Zemlinsky (left) and Arnold Schoenberg in Prague, c. 1917. (Photo by Studio Schlosser – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It’s the birthdate of Austrian composer and conductor Alexander Zemlinsky in Vienna in 1871. Zemlinsky studied piano as a child and then played the organ in his synagogue on holidays. He was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory in 1884 as a student in theory with Robert Fuchs and composition with Johann Nepomuk Fuchs and Anton Bruckner. He began composing and won the school’s piano prize in 1890. Johannes Brahms became a supporter of the young composer after attending performances of Zemlinsky’s Symphony in D minor in 1892 and his String Quintet in D minor in 1896, and he recommended Zemlinsky’s Clarinet Trio (1896) for publication. Zemlinsky founded an amateur orchestra, Polyhymnia, in 1895; Arnold Schoenberg joined as a cellist and they became friends and then brothers-in-law when Schoenberg married Zemlinsky’s sister, Mathilde. Zemlinsky was also Schoenberg’s only formal music teacher (counterpoint). Zemlinsky Symphony No. 2 shared the Beethoven Prize in 1897 (Robert Gound was joint winner). In 1899, he was appointed Kapellmeister at Vienna’s Carltheater. He wrote his orchestral fantasy Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story) in 1903; the composition was lost until the 1980s and is now one of his most popular works. He was appointed first Kapellmeister of the new Vienna Volksoper (1907); conductor at Deutsches Landestheater in Prague (1911-1927, his best-known work, Lyric Symphony (1923), was written during his tenure); and then conductor at the Kroll Opera, Berlin, where he taught and worked under Otto Klemperer. Zemlinsky fled to Vienna in 1933 as the Nazi party gained power and focused on composing and conducting, then to New York. His health suffered after leaving Europe; he stopped composing and died in 1942.