This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper

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Saturday, 9 November and Sunday, 10 November 2024

Hello, Weekend!
Tune into The Classical Station for great classical music, anytime, anywhere.

 

Saturday:

Join Haydn Jones at 6pm ET for the Saturday Evening Request Program. The 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 Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Tallis Scholars, and organist Laurence Cummings with works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Robert Schumann, and more. This week’s featured work is The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Sir Karl Jenkins. Join Mick Anderson at 8am ET.

 

And at 6pm ET, Preview! spotlights new releases in the classical music world, including the album Héritage (Buzz Cuivres, aka Buzz Brass) and Rob Kennedy’s interview with pianist Charlotte Hu about her latest recording, Liszt: Metamorphosis. 

 

On these dates in the history of classical music:

A very Happy Birthday to Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer Bryn Terfel, born Bryn Terfel Jones in Pant Glas, Caernarfonshire, Wales, on November 9, 1965. Terfel had an early talent and he began singing traditional Welsh songs and entering (and winning) competitions for his singing. In 1984, he became a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London; won more competitions throughout the 1980s; then made his operatic debut with Welsh National Opera (1990) and English National Opera (1991), quickly followed by international opera and concert debuts in Brussels and the U.S. Terfel has had an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon since 1992 and performs and records with orchestras and opera companies all over the world.

Nearly three centuries before Terfel’s voice made its appearance on the planet, it was the birthdate of French harpsichordist, organist, and composer François Couperin on November 10, 1668, in Paris. He was known as Couperin le Grand (Couperin the Great) to set him apart from other members of the musically-talented Couperin family line (his father was Charles Couperin, whose brother was Louis Couperin). Young Couperin had his first lessons with his father; when his father died, Couperin took over his position as organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais (he was only 11, so the church leaders brought in another organist for most duties with a plan for Couperin to fully take on the position when he was 18). He continued to take organ lessons while he waited, and then when he was 21, he became court musician and composer for Louis XIV and kept his job at Saint-Gervais, too. Couperin’s earliest compositions were around this time, a lot of chamber music followed quickly by a collection of harpsichord works. He worked steadily and prolifically until the 1720s when he began to have health complaints; he died in 1733. Over his lifetime, he composed a lot of pieces for solo harpsichord but only a couple for organ; a fair number of chamber works; and songs (both sacred and secular). 

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Friday, 8 November 2024

 

It’s All-Request Friday and we’re playing your favorites and dedications! (And we’ll do it again tomorrow on the Saturday Evening Request Program). If there’s a classical work you’d like to hear next week, go ahead and make your request here.)

 

On today’s date in classical music history:

It’s the birthdate of English composer, poet, and author Arnold Bax in 1883 in Streatham, Surrey. Bax attended the Hampstead Conservatoire in the 1890s then studied piano and composition at the Royal Academy of Music from 1900 to 1905. He was influenced by the music of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Claude Debussy in his early student days, but a trip to the western coast of Ireland in 1902 changed his predilections and he found that he was fascinated by Ireland and profoundly affected by Celtic tradition, culture, and musical style. After he graduated from RAM, Bax moved to Dublin and began composing a tone poem cycle called Eire in 1908, including Into the Twilight and In the Faëry Hills. He also wrote poetry and prose under the pseudonym Dermot O’Byrne, but many of these writings were never published because they were deemed to be subversive and expressions of sympathy with the Irish republican cause. Bax suffered with heart problems for most of his life and his condition kept him from military service, so the period of 1910-1920 was a prolific time for him as many of his contemporaries were involved in the fighting of World War I. What is perhaps his best-known work, Tintagel, was composed during this period. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Bax wrote seven symphonies, songs and choral music, chamber pieces, and works for solo piano; after World War II, he largely retired from composition. 

It’s also the birthdate of American operatic bass Jerome Hines (born Jerome Heinz) in Hollywood, California, in 1921. Hines was an early student of voice, which he continued to study while also a student of mathematics and chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He debuted in 1941 at the San Francisco Opera; it was then that his manager suggested changing his last name to Hines to attempt to avoid anti-German sentiment. Hines sang 41 seasons with the Metropolitan Opera (1946-1987) and was well-known for his powerful voice and stage presence (he stood 6’6”). The 1950s were a busy time for Hines: He was the first US-born singer to sing the title role of Boris Godunov (1954) with the Met, and he had his European debut with Glyndebourne Festival at the Edinburgh Festival; at La Scala; and the Bayreuth Festival, and he was a contributor to Mathematics Magazine, including several articles outlining Operator Theory (he collaborated with other mathematicians on philosophies of mathematics into the 1990s). In the 1960s, Hines sang at the San Carlo and at the Bolshoi in Moscow, and he wrote the opera I Am the Way, based on the life of Jesus, and performed it many times. In 1987, he founded the Opera-Music Theatre Institute of New Jersey and coached voice students, but he continued to perform as a singer until 2002.

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Thursday, 7 November 2024

It’s Friday Eve, Listeners!

Thank you for listening, and for all of your support of classical music and public radio at The Classical Station.

 

This week’s Thursday Night Opera House features the 1979 recording of Daniel Barenboim conducting l’Orchestre et Choeurs de Paris and wonderful soloists in Samson et Delila, Op. 47, by Camille Saint-Saëns, based on the tale in the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. Samson (Plácido Domingo), a warrior and judge among the Nazarites, regains strength through his faith following his seduction by Dalila (Elena Obraztsova), a Philistine.
Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET for biblical drama, heartbreak, and redemption.

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of Australian dramatic coloratura soprano Joan Sutherland in Sydney in 1926. Sutherland’s mother was a singer, but never professionally; she imitated her mother’s singing exercises as a child and didn’t begin formal lessons herself until she was 18. She was 20 (1947) when she made her concert debut in Sydney, as Dido in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. She won the (Sydney) Sun Aria competition in 1949 and moved to London in 1951 to study at the Opera School of the Royal College of Music. She debuted with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1952. In 1954, Sutherland married Australian conductor and pianist Richard Bonynge; she became the first Australian to win a Grammy Award (1961) for “Best Classical Performance – Vocal Soloist” the same year that she made her Metropolitan Opera debut. Sutherland was instrumental in the rebirth of bel canto repertoire from the 1950s through the 1980s and she made recordings and performed with the world’s best opera companies (Paris Opera; La Scala; Metropolitan Opera) until her final performance in 1990 at the age of 63. She was known as “La Stupenda” (The Stupendous One) and is regarded as one of the greatest sopranos of all time.

And a very Happy Birthday to French piano virtuoso (and founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York) Hélène Grimaud, born in 1969 in Aix-en-Provence. She began studying piano at age seven, and entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1982 at the age of thirteen. She won the Conservatoire’s 1st Prize in 1985, as well as the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros. Grimaud has said that she experiences synesthesia (she sees music as colors) and that helps her memorize music scores. She made her debut recital in Tokyo in 1987 and performed with l’Orchestre de Paris under conductor Daniel Barenboim the same year. Grimaud has recorded and toured since then as a soloist and recitalist, and she also writes novels. She is active in wolf conservation, is a member of Musicians for Human Rights, and was appointed to the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (France’s highest decoration) at the rank of Chevalier (Knight).

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Wednesday, 6 November 2024

Hello, All!

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If you’re a business owner who would like to match and/or boost your employees’ contributions to The Classical Station, email our membership department. And consider becoming one of our Business Sponsors! You’ll reach a global audience of loyal listeners AND you’ll be supporting WCPE/The Classical Station, too. More information is here, or email WCPE’s business development specialist Mary Moonen to learn more. 

 

This week in Classical Considerations, Harmony and Hostility: We explore some of the great rivalries of classical music history and ask you, the listeners, to determine who you think came out ahead! Far from the serene and contemplative world that some of your favorite classical music might suggest, the world of the golden age of classical music was often marked by fierce disagreements and opposing factions vying for aesthetic supremacy. As with all things art, it was not always clear who the winners of these disagreements were. Read more here. 

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

Today is the birthdate of Belgian musician and inventor Adolphe Sax in 1814 in Dinant. His parents were musicians and instrument-makers who influenced the design of the French horn. Sax joined them in the endeavor, building flutes and clarinets and then attending the Royal Conservatory of Brussels as a performance student in flute, clarinet, and voice. Sax was already experimenting and designing new instruments when he graduated and received his first patent at the age of 24 (a new design for the bass clarinet). He moved to Paris in 1842 and made improvements to the design of valved bugles which became known as saxhorns and were made in seven different sizes. Sax received patents for the saxhorn, saxophone, saxotromba, and saxtuba in 1846. The instruments quickly became popular and widely available; the British brass band movement exclusively developed from the availability and the tonal quality of the saxhorn family of instruments, especially in the border counties of England and Scotland, and the instruments themselves fast became a standard in military bands throughout Britain, France, and other parts of Europe. Hector Berlioz was an early supporter and proponent, but they were slow to become standard orchestral instruments. In 1857, the Paris Conservatory appointed Sax to the faculty to oversee new courses in saxophone and other instruments and a decade later he won the premiere Grand Prix de la Facture Instrumentale at the 1867 Paris International Exposition. But Sax’s established instrument patents (or the lack thereof, in some cases) and competition from other instrument-makers led to a number of legal troubles and financial bankruptcies, and he was destitute when he died in 1894. 

What Sax may have lacked in finances he more than made up for in his influence on the history of classical music and the lives of other musicians, including American composer and “March King” John Philip Sousa, born in 1854 in Washington, D.C. As a young child, Sousa had perfect pitch and studied violin, piano, flute, several brass instruments, and singing. At 13, Sousa’s father, a trombonist in the U.S. Marine Band (USMB), enlisted his son into the U.S. Marine Corps as an apprentice trombonist (apparently to keep the young Sousa from running away and joining a circus band). Sousa’s apprenticeship ended in 1875 and he left the USMB briefly to perform as a violinist and learn to conduct with a theatre orchestra; but in 1880, he returned as the head of the USMB and stayed in the post until 1892, leading “The President’s Own” band under five presidents. In 1892, Sousa organized The Sousa Band, which toured from 1892 to 1931 and played more than 15,600 U.S. and international concerts. He also helped design the marching brass bass (the sousaphone) with Philadelphia instrument maker J. W. Pepper, a tuba that was recreated by C.G. Conn in 1898. Sousa is considered the “American March King” and among the best-known of the more than 130 marches that he wrote are The Stars and Stripes Forever (National March of the United States of America), Semper Fidelis (official march of the United States Marine Corps), The Liberty Bell, and The Washington Post. Sousa also wrote 15 operettas and orchestral works including overtures, suites, dances, and fantasies, and he arranged lots of existing orchestral music by other composers for performance by brass band. 

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Tuesday, 5 November 2024

A very good day to you, Listeners!

Don’t forget to make your requests for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program! We are looking forward to hearing what you choose as your favorites and dedications, so put those requests in right here. The playlists will be up later in the week so that you can see when your selection will broadcast. (And if your choice doesn’t show up this week, we appreciate your patience; we accommodate as many requests as we can and there’s a lot of great music out there!)

HEADS-UP: TICKET GIVEAWAY

Tomorrow during Classical Café (Wednesday, 5 November, between 11am-12pm ET), George Leef will give away a pair of tickets for the North Carolina Symphony’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37, featuring pianist Stephen Hough. Tune in to win! 

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of German Meistersinger, composer, conductor, poet, playwright, and shoemaker Hans Sachs in 1494 in Nürnberg (Nuremberg). As a child, Sachs was a singing student in the town’s church, then he went to Latin school. He began apprenticing as a shoemaker when he was 14 and at 17, he set out as a journeyman shoemaker and musician and traveled and plied his trades in many towns and cities in what is now modern Germany. While living in Wels in his 20s, Sachs focused on writing poetry, plays, and music; as a cultural figure, he met Emperor Maximilian I and became a member of the emperor’s court entourage for a couple of years. In 1515, he was traveling again, first apprenticing as a meistersinger in Munich, and then returning to Nuremberg in 1516, for the rest of his life. The next year, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and the influence of Martin Luther changed Sachs’ priorities; he became an ardent Lutheran and wrote poems, music, and religious pamphlets in support of the Reformation. As a result, the town council of Nuremberg forbid Sachs from publishing anything else along those lines, at least until the town leaders signed on with the Reformation themselves. As a composer, Sachs wrote more than 4,000 Meisterlieder (Mastersongs), along with other songs; lots of poems, plays, prose, and fables; and religious tracts and essays. How many shoes he repaired is unknown. Sachs is also the inspiration for two operas: Hans Sachs (1840) by Albert Lortzing and Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868).

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Monday, 4 November 2024

Welcome to a new week, Dear Listeners and Supporters! 

Thank You All So Much.

We can’t thank you enough for showing your loyal and amazing support during our Fall Membership Campaign. We are still getting the numbers together, but it looks like our drive was a success and we certainly couldn’t have done it without your help. The connection that we have to our listeners cannot be matched, and you are the reason that we are on the air.

(If you didn’t have a chance to donate during the drive, you may do so ANYTIME right here.)

On November’s edition of My Life in Music, Rob Kennedy spotlights Michel Ferland, the Managing and Artistic Director of record label ATMA Classiques. Join us at 7pm ET.

Then on Monday Night at the Symphony, the Suisse Romande Orchestra (founded 1918) under current Music Director Jonathan Nott, with a program featuring music by Camille Saint-Saëns, Alexander Borodin, César Franck, Claude Debussy, and more. The symphony begins at 8pm ET.

 

 

 

Each Tuesday on Classical Café, George Leef profiles a Legendary Performer, and this week it’s pianist and composer Cécile Chaminade.

And then on Wednesday (November 6), he’ll have a ticket giveaway between 11am-12pm ET for the North Carolina Symphony’s performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37, featuring pianist Stephen Hough.

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of Canadian pianist, composer, and conductor Gena Branscombe in 1881 in Picton, Ontario. Her early musical talent and an ability to improvise and to sight-read led to piano and harmony lessons with local teachers, early graduation from high school (she was 14), and early entrance to the Chicago Musical College in 1896. Branscombe stayed in Chicago and supported herself by playing as an accompanist, teaching private piano lessons, and publishing her own songs. She won gold medals in composition from the college in 1900 and 1901, and joined the faculty following her graduation. In 1907, Branscombe took a position as head of the piano department at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, for two years; in 1909, she traveled to Berlin for intensive piano and composition lessons under pianist Rudolf Ganz and composer Engelbert Humperdinck. Branscombe returned to the U.S. in 1910, moved to New York City with her husband, and kept composing. Her oratorio Pilgrims of Destiny was completed in 1920 and was a tribute to the arrival of the Mayflower pilgrims in 1620 (her husband John F. Tenney helped write the libretto); the work won the Best Composition Award (1928) from the National League of American Pen Women, and the original score is held by the Music Department of the Library of Congress (her other manuscripts are held by the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts). Branscombe founded women’s chorus Branscombe Choral in 1934 (until 1954); the group performed at the first United Nations and on national radio broadcasts, and sang Christmas carols for commuters at Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations. Her own songs were performed by singers from 1908 into the 1940s, and several music companies published her compositions in her lifetime, including more than 70 choral works; 150 art songs; 13 works for piano; and a number of works for other instruments. She was also a national officeholder for the General Federation of Women’s Clubs; National League of American Pen Women; National Federation of Music Clubs; Society of American Women Composers; and American Society of Composers, Authors and Poets; and the American Music and Folksong Committee.