This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday, 30 November and Sunday, 1 December 2024
Hello, Weekend!
Tune into The Classical Station to accompany whatever you have planned.
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:
On this week’s Great Sacred Music, performances by Elektra Women’s Choir; Apollo’s Fire; and Chanticleer. You’ll hear works by Sir William Walton; Claudio Monteverdi; Francis Poulenc, and others. This week’s featured work is Sir John Rutter’s Magnificat. Join Mick Anderson at 8am ET, right after Sing for Joy.
And Preview! spotlights new recordings in the classical music world (including guitarist David Starobin’s Virtuosi on the Bridge label) and features Rob Kennedy’s interview with pianist Hyewon Chang about her latest release, Fantaisie Reflections on the Navona label. Join Tom Hayakawa at 6pm ET.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
Charles-Valentin Alkan, c. 1865. (Unknown photographer, tinted photograph – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
French pianist and composer Charles-Valentin Alkan was born November 30, 1813, in Paris. Alkan’s father, Alkan Morhange, was a musician who ran a private music school in le Marais and his siblings were all musicians and/or composers themselves; all six of them studied at the Conservatoire de Paris (Alkan’s brother Napoléon also later became professor of solfège at the Conservatoire). Alkan was a prodigy and he entered studies at the Conservatoire in both piano and organ at the age of five; at seven, Alkan won a first prize for solfège (he also gave his first public performance that year, playing the violin), then he won prizes in piano (1824), harmony (1827), and organ (1834). Alkan was 14 when he wrote his first composition, a set of variations for piano based on a theme by Daniel Steibelt, and began teaching at his father’s school. He also began performing publicly regularly in the city’s salons and giving concerts. During his teenage years and into his 20s, Alkan was a central figure in the arts and culture scene of Paris, with such friends as Eugène Delacroix, George Sand, Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Victor Hugo, and others; he was also elected into the influential Société Académique des Enfants d’Apollon (Society of the Children of Apollo), whose members included Luigi Cherubini and Liszt. In the 1830s and 1840s, Alkan began writing the great breadth of his original works for piano, including the Twelve Caprices, Opp.12, 13, 15 and 16; the 25 Préludes, Op. 31 for piano or organ; and the Grande sonate, Op. 33, “Les quatre âges,” and he was one of the most famous pianists in Paris and internationally. In 1853, Alkan gave two concerts and then completely withdrew from society for the next twenty years. He was fluent in Hebrew and Greek, and during this period, he worked on a comprehensive translation of the Bible into French (after his death, the manuscript for this project was lost, along with many of his musical compositions) and published a number of other works for piano. In 1873, Alkan gave up his reclusivity enough to give public and private recitals and concerts in piano showrooms to advertise the recently released pédalier; he continued to perform until his death in 1888, and though he wasn’t quite the social fixture he had been in his young life, Alkan was spoken of as an incredibly talented, intimate, and moving pianist and composer who added a human element sometimes found lacking in music.
Agathe Backer Grøndahl, c. date unknown. (Photo by Christopher Gade Rude – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
And Norwegian pianist and composer Agathe Backer Grøndahl was born in Homestrand on December 1, 1847, and she was 10 when her family moved to Kristiania (now Oslo). Backer Grøndahl’s parents were initially resistant to the idea of her formal studies in music, but they relented once they were settled in Oslo; she studied with a number of composers, attended the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst in Berlin in the mid 1860s, and also studied with Hans von Bülow in Florence and Franz Liszt in Weimar. Her performance debut was in 1868 with Edvard Grieg conducting Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5; Backer Grøndahl and Grieg remained colleagues and friends throughout their lives, and she premiered several of his works. She also gave many concert tours throughout Europe over her career. In the late 1870s, her hearing began to deteriorate and by 1903, she was experiencing complete deafness and turned her attention to teaching and composing. Backer Grøndahl wrote more than 400 compositions, including many songs (more than 180), some choral works, and a cantata; numerous pieces for piano; and two works for orchestra, including her Scherzo for orchestra, which was the first work by a woman publicly performed in Norway. Almost all the music she wrote was published during her lifetime, a rare event for any composer, and a lot of her songs are standard Norwegian repertoire, and some have called her the first true Norwegian impressionist for her later works.
Friday, 29 November 2024
Happy Friday, All!
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). See the playlists here, and if there’s a classical work you’d like to hear next week, go ahead and make your request right here.
HEADS-UP: TICKET GIVEAWAY
Tune into Classical Café with George Leef next Wednesday (December 4, between 11am-12pm ET) for a chance to win a pair of tickets to Cary Ballet Company’s production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.
On today’s date in classical music history:
Portrait of Gaetano Donizetti, c. 1868, by Eugen Felix. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Italian composer Domenico Gaetano Donizetti in 1797 in Bergamo. Early in Donezetti’s life, he attended a music school set up by Simon Mayr; Mayr also made sure the teenaged Donizetti was placed at the Bologna Academy, where he wrote his first opera, Il Pigmalione. He had already written nine operas by 1822, when he received an offer from the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples for a residency, which he kept until 1844; during this period, he was living and working in Naples, Rome, Paris, and Vienna, as he composed and staged his own operas and those of other composers. Of the more than 75 operas Donizetti wrote, 51 of them premiered in Naples; his first international success was in 1830 with Anna Bolena, followed by L’elisir d’amore in 1832, Lucia di Lammermoor in 1835, and La fille du régiment in 1840. Donizetti became ill in 1843 (most likely with the early stages of syphilis) which worsened steadily until his death in 1848.
Thursday, 28 November 2024
Happy Thanksgiving! Wherever you are, we’re so glad you’re listening.
We hear from lovers of our station every day through phone calls, emails, written letters, and social media, and we are so grateful to have the opportunity to earn those compliments and to keep bringing you the classical music that you (and we) all love.
Your support has made that possible since 1978.
As we approach the end of 2024, please consider The Classical Station in your year-end giving. Donations are what keep us on the air, sounding wonderful.
(All those nice messages help, too). Thank you!
On this date in the history of classical music:
Ferdinand Ries, c. prior to 1830. (Engraving by Carl Mayer – Bibliothèque nationale de France – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of German pianist and composer Ferdinand Ries, born in 1784 in Bonn. Ries had his earliest piano lessons from his father Franz, then with Bernhard Romberg, a cellist in the Bonn Hofkapelle. In 1798, Ries went to Arnsberg for organ training, then to Munich where he tried to support himself as a music copyist. He was penniless when he made a new start in 1803 in Vienna, equipped only with a letter of introduction from composer Carl Cannabich for Ries’s next teacher, Ludwig van Beethoven, who had also had early instruction from Ries’s father. During this period, Ries and Carl Czerny were Beethoven’s only students. Ries also became Beethoven’s secretary, writing to publishers, copying notes, and running errands. He made his public performance debut in 1804 with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, and Ries and Beethoven remained friends and colleagues until Beethoven’s death in 1827. Over the next several years, Ries began composing in earnest, first with a piano concerto in C (now known as Concerto No. 6 for Piano and Orchestra) and his Two Piano Sonatas, Op. 1, which were dedicated to Beethoven. Ries toured in Germany and Russia and then spent about 11 years in London as a music teacher, a performing pianist, and a member of the Philharmonic Society. In 1824, he returned to Germany as a full-fledged composer, conductor, and bandleader of note; between 1824 and 1837, he was director of the Lower Rhenish Music Festival eight times (he conducted the German premiere of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in his first year) and he began writing operas; in 1838, he and Franz Wegeler co-authored and published a memoir of their experiences with Beethoven, and Ries died later that year. Over his career, Ries composed eight symphonies, a violin concerto, nine piano concertos, three operas, several oratorios, and numerous chamber works, including 26 string quartets.
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Hello, Listeners!
It’s the middle of the week AND it’s Thanksgiving Eve! Whatever you have planned for tomorrow, we hope you’ll let us accompany you with great classical music, including a few special selections for the holiday, like Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95, “From the New World,” and The Four Moons by Louis Wayne Ballard. Join us for a day of contemplation, gratitude, and beautiful music. 
Women often go unrecognized in the history of classical music despite their brilliant contributions to the evolution of this cherished art form.
Matthew Young honors some of these trailblazers in this week’s Classical Considerations: Women of Note.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Hilary Hahn, c. 2022. (Photo by Chris Lee – Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon)
A very Happy Birthday to American violinist Hilary Hahn, born in Lexington, Virginia, in 1979. Hahn grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland, area and began violin lessons as a very young child (she was three years old) in the Suzuki Program of the preparatory arm of Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory. After a year, she began private lessons with Klara Berkovich, who was on faculty at the Conservatory. Hahn was 10 (1990) when she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music as a violin student under Jascha Brodsky, and 12 when she made her orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. That performance was quickly followed by debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, and she has since performed and recorded with many (if not most) of the world’s premier orchestras, as well as several chamber ensembles. Hahn finished her graduation requirements at Curtis in 1996 (she also began recording that year), but she stayed at the school until 1999 to continue her studies in violin and chamber music (and to attend summer language courses in French, German, and Japanese at Middlebury College). In 2000, she was in an episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood (Episode 1755). Hahn is considered one of the greatest violinists of all time; is a multiple Grammy Award winner; is a champion for new music and has commissioned works from and collaborated with many contemporary composers (including Edgar Meyer, Einojuhari Rautavaara, Jennifer Higdon, Antón García Abril, Josh Ritter, and more); has piloted free community concerts since 2016; co-founded DeepMusic.ai with Carol E. Reiley (2020) to connect artists and AI companies; and is the recipient of the 2024 Avery Fisher Prize.
Tuesday, 26 November 2024
Good Day, All!
Tomorrow during Classical Café (Wednesday, 27 November, between 11am-12pm ET), George Leef will give away a pair of tickets to see the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle’s production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, a classic opera for the season by Gian Carlo Menotti, who also wrote the libretto. Good luck!
Don’t forget to make your requests for All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program! We’re already looking forward to your favorites and dedications, and the playlists will be posted later this week.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Earl Wild performing at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Massachusetts, c. 1950. (Photo by Erika Stone, Getty Images)
It’s the birthdate of American piano virtuoso, conductor, and composer Earl Wild (born Royland Earl Wild) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1915. Wild was a prodigy who made his Pittsburgh radio debut at age 12; played piano and celesta with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at 14 and performed with the Minneapolis Symphony under Dmitri Mitropoulos. Wild studied piano, cello, bass, and flute, and other instruments at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). When he was 15 (1931), then U.S. President Herbert Hoover invited Wild to perform at the White House; Wild went on to perform at the White House for the next five presidents, as well, the only pianist to ever play for six consecutive U.S. presidents. He was only 21 when the NBC Symphony Orchestra hired him as staff pianist (1937) and just a couple of years later, he was the first pianist to perform a recital on U.S. television (he was also the first pianist to stream a recital on the internet, in 1997). Wild served as a musician in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was part of U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s entourage as she traveled the nation to drum up the war effort; he played the national anthem before her speeches. Following the war, Wild became staff pianist, conductor, and composer for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and was in the role until 1968. Wild served on the faculty of a number of colleges and conservatories, including Juilliard(1979-1987); Eastman School of Music, Penn State University, Carnegie Mellon, and the Manhattan School of Music. Wild began transcribing orchestral and other works for piano as a teenager, an activity that served him throughout his career and made up a vast number of his recordings; his Grand Fantasy on Airs from Porgy and Bess (1973), was the first extended piano transcription/paraphrase from an American opera, and he recorded it in 1976). He also wrote a number of original compositions, including music for Sid Caesar’s television shows; music for films, documentaries, and plays; an Easter oratorio, Revelations (1962); a work for chorus and percussion called The Turquoise Horse (1975); a number of orchestral and chamber pieces for piano and orchestra; and even a suite of belly-dances for piano (2004). Throughout his long career, Wild was as renowned worldwide for his astounding performances and recitals as for the many master classes he taught. His final concert was in 2008 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where he was also awarded the President’s Merit Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Monday, 25 November 2024
Welcome to the new week, Listeners!
We thank you so much for your loyal support.
This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Paul Paray, Neeme Jarvi, and Leonard Slatkin) and includes music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Amy Beach, Emmanuel Chabrier, and more.
Join us for the symphony at 8pm ET.
Christopher Hogwood, conductor. (Hermann Wüstmanndpa Picture-Alliance, via Associated Press – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Tune into Classical Café with George Leef every Tuesday for his weekly Legendary Performer feature; this week it’s harpsichordist and conductor Christopher Hogwood.
And on Wednesday (November 27, between 11am-12pm ET), he’ll give away a pair of tickets to see the Chamber Orchestra of the Triangle’s production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. Tune in to win!
On this date in the history of classical music:
(from left to right) Virgil Thomson, Walter Piston, Herbert Elwell, and Aaron Copland at Nadia Boulanger’s home in Paris, c.1925. (Photo by Thérèse Bonney – Courtesy of Library of Congress)
It’s the birthdate of American composer, conductor, and music critic Virgil Thomson in 1896 in Kansas City, Missouri. Thomson was an early student of piano and organ; he attended Harvard University, focusing on the piano (especially the works of Erik Satie, who remained one of Thomson’s strongest and most profound influences) and singing with the Harvard Glee Club. He studied in Paris for a year before graduating in 1925, and stayed there until 1940, absorbing the music of the era and his contemporary French composers (“Les Six” and others) and eventually studying with Nadia Boulanger. Thomson’s career was packed with artistic partnerships, and his first years in Paris were marked by two artists who would become friends, mentors, and collaborators: novelist and poet Gertrude Stein, who was the librettist for Thomson’s first opera, Four Saints in Three Acts (1934); and painter Maurice Grosser, who also became Thomson’s life partner. Thomson and Grosser were central figures in the music, art, and theatre scenes in Paris and, later, New York City. In the late 1930s, Thomson partnered with film director Pare Lorentz and wrote music for films funded by the U.S. government through the Resettlement Administration and its later incarnation, the Farm Security Administration. He composed orchestral suites from the scores for these films, The River (1936) and The Plow That Broke the Plains (1937). In 1949, Thomson won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his music from the 1948 film Louisiana Story, a collaboration with director Robert Flaherty. He also established himself as a music critic with his 1939 book, The State of Music, and he wrote for the New York Herald-Tribune from 1940 to 1954. In addition to his operas and film scores, Thomson wrote symphonies, symphonic poems, concerti for cello and flute, songs and choral works, and works for solo piano, and he was a mentor to a generation of American composers, including Ned Rorem and Leonard Bernstein.