This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, 11-12 January 2025
Welcome to the weekend, Listeners! Great classical music for all your plans, right here.
Here’s what’s coming up this weekend:
Saturday:
Join us at 1pm ET for a complete recording of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, under the direction of Richard Bonynge with Adolphe Adam’s timeless and haunting ballet, Giselle.
And then Haydn Jones has your Saturday Evening Request Program from 6pm to Midnight ET. Peruse the playlist here and make requests for next week’s programs here.
Sunday:
This week’s Great Sacred Music features performances by the Dresden Chamber Choir and Baroque Orchestra and organist Marie-Claire Alain, and works by Palestrina, Haydn, and Liszt. Our featured work is Felix Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 in B Flat, “Lobgesang.” Join Mick Anderson at 8am ET, right after Sing for Joy.
And Preview! spotlights new releases in the classical music world. This week, Tom Hayakawa features recent recordings of Barbara Harbach’s Symphony No. 13, “The Journey,” Antonio Vivaldi’s Nisi Dominus, and lots more, starting at 6pm ET.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
French organist and composer Maurice Duruflé, c. 1956. (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images, Boston Globe)
French organist and composer Maurice Duruflé was born January 11, 1902, in Louviers. As a child, Duruflé was a chorister in the Rouen Cathedral Choir School (1912-1918) while also studying piano and organ. At 17, he moved to Paris for lessons with (and as assistant to) Charles Tournemire at Basilique Sainte-Clotilde, Paris (until 1927); in 1920 Duruflé was admitted into the Conservatoire de Paris and graduated with first prizes in organ, harmony, fugue, piano accompaniment, and composition. He became Louis Vierne’s assistant at Notre-Dame de Paris in 1927 and also served as organist of St-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, from 1929 until the late 1970s. Duruflé composed and won prizes for his music, including his Prélude, adagio et choral varié sur le “Veni Creator.” In 1943 he became Professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire de Paris (until 1970), and soon completed his Requiem for soloists, choir, organ, and orchestra, Op. 9, in 1947, probably the most famous of his compositions. Duruflé was highly critical of himself and his music, and wrote more works than he published; he often edited the published works, as well. It is said that his perfectionism led to extremely polished compositions that are popular with organists and audiences and are frequently and widely performed.
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, c. 1906. (Monographien moderner musiker, Vol. 1, p. 1. Leipzig – C. F. Kahnt)
Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was born in Venice on January 12, 1876. Wolf-Ferrari studied piano, but wanted to be a painter; still he began to focus on music in his teenage years and then enrolled at the University of Theatre and Music in Munichs in counterpoint and composition. He began composing in earnest in the 1890s, before heading back to Venice. La Cenerentola, his opera based on the story of Cinderella, was finally performed in 1900 but wasn’t popular in Italy; he went back to Germany where it was a hit and where his cantata La vita nuova made him internationally famous. He is best known for his comic operas, like Il segreto di Susanna (1909), and for his works based on plays by Carlo Goldoni, including Il campiello (1936).
Friday, 10 January 2025
Happy Friday, Listeners!
It’s All-Request Friday (10am-10pm ET) and then we’ll play your favorites and dedications again tomorrow on the Saturday Evening Request Program (6pm-12am ET). Check the playlists to see what will play when, and make your requests and dedications for next week.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg in New Orleans in 2016, working with Artist Corps. (Photo by New Orleans Magazine & artistcorpsnola.org)
On today’s date in the history of classical music:
A very Happy Birthday to Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, an Italian-American violinist and teacher, born in Rome in 1961. She and her mother moved to the U.S. when she was eight and she became a student at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School of Music, and the Aspen Music Festival and School. Salerno-Sonnenberg became the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition’s youngest prize winner in 1981 at the age of 20; she won the Avery Fisher Career Grant (1983); and she wrote an autobiography for kids (Nadja: On My Way, 1989), all while performing and recording. In 1994, she injured (an understatement) the little finger on her left hand and had to relearn compositions and perform with three fingers while it healed (and afterward). Filmmaker Paola de Florio made a documentary about Salerno-Sonnenberg in the late 1990s (it was nominated for a 2000 Academy Award). She has performed and recorded a diverse and passionate repertoire of world premieres and old favorites with many, many orchestras around the world, and she now also teaches and is part of the Loyola University New Orleans School of Music’s Resident Artist Program.
Thursday, 9 January 2025
Happy Friday Eve, Listeners!
Tomorrow is All-Request Friday, so check out the playlist to see what will air when and put in your requests/dedications for next week.
Thursday Night Opera House features the 1971 recording of Sir Colin Davis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (John Constable, cembalo) with remarkable soloists in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). Figaro (Wladimiro Ganzarolli) and Susanna (Mirella Freni) are servants to Count Almaviva (Ingvar Wixell). As the two plan their wedding, the Count attempts to seduce Susanna, leading to a complex web of plots and schemes as everyone, including the Countess (Jessye Norman), attempts to outsmart the Count. Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET for a fun and classic comic opera.
Henriette Puig-Roget, c. 1945. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
On this day in classical music history:
It’s the birthdate of French pianist and organist Henriette Puig-Roget in Bastia, Corsica, 1910. Puig-Roget was nine when she entered the Conservatoire de Paris as a student of piano, harmony, music history, counterpoint and fugue, and organ (Isidore Philipp, Maurice Emmanuel, and Marcel Dupré were among her teachers), where she studied until 1930 and racked up six first prizes. She also wanted to study conducting, but director Henri Rabaud rejected the idea. A second prize in the Prix de Rome in 1933 led to her appointments as organ-master for both the Oratoire du Louvre (until 1979) and the Paris Synagogue (until 1952) while she also performed as a concert pianist and organist. Puig-Roget was conductor of voice at the Paris Opera from 1938 to 1940 and again from 1946 to 1957; in 1957, she succeeded Nadia Boulanger as professor of accompaniment at the Conservatory. She was also a vocal coach at the Paris Opera and performed on the radio from 1935 until 1975. In 1979, she moved to Tokyo, Japan, to teach piano, music theory, and chamber music at the University of the Arts.
Wednesday, 8 January 2025
The WCPE transmitter. (Photo by Will Padgett)
We thank you all so much for listening, and for supporting The Classical Station.
Please consider becoming a member if you haven’t donated before.
No, it doesn’t matter how much you give, only that you help support public radio and sustain great classical music on WCPE. You also have options for Thank You Gifts as a token of your support for the classical music lovers in your life (including yourself). If you’re a business owner, you can support us AND reach an audience of hundreds of thousands of listeners who also love and support the station. We all win.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Jaromir Weinberger, c. 1960. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Czech-American composer Jaromír Weinberger, born in 1896 in Prague. Weinberger was playing the piano at age five, and composing and conducting by age ten. At 14, he was admitted into the Prague Conservatory to study piano and composition; he continued his studies in counterpoint with Max Reger at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. Weinberger took a faculty position at Cornell University in 1922 and was a professor of composition at what is now the Ithaca College music school (then Ithaca Conservatory, 1922-1926). He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1926 when he was appointed director of the National Theater in Bratislava; he also completed his most successful composition that year, his opera Schwanda the Bagpiper (Švanda Dudák), which was performed by most of the world’s foremost opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera. Weinberger left Europe to escape the rise of the Nazi regime in 1939 and settled in the U.S., becoming a citizen in 1948. During his career, Schwanda was extremely popular and well-known, but he composed more than 100 works, including more operas/operettas, songs, and music for the stage; choral music; chamber music; music for piano and organ; and orchestral works, many of which have been revived and recorded.
Tuesday, 7 January 2024
Good day to you all! Thank you for listening and for supporting The Classical Station.
There’s still time to get your requests and dedications in for this week’s All-Request Friday and the Saturday Evening Request Program. Let us know what your favorites are!
Clara Haskil on the street named for her in Vevey, Switzerland, date unknown. (Photographer unknown – Courtesy of Clara Haskil Association)
On this date in the history of classical music:
It’s the birthdate of Romanian pianist (and skilled violinist) Clara Haskil, born in Bucharest in 1895. Haskil was 10 when she entered the Conservatoire de Paris, having already studied in Vienna under Richard Robert (teacher to Rudolf Serkin and George Szell). She graduated at 15 and began touring in Europe, but physical ailments, frequent illness, and acute stage fright kept her career from blossoming until after World War II, when she performed in the Netherlands (1949); moved to Switzerland (1951); collaborated with many of the best-known musicians of the day (including George Enescu, Eugène Ysaÿe, Pablo Casals, Isaac Stern, Henryk Szeryng and Arthur Grumiaux); and played as a soloist with most, if not all, of Europe’s premier orchestras. Haskil was renowned for her interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and Scarlatti; she was also a fine violinist and she and violinist Arthur Grumiaux (who was also a talented pianist) would sometimes switch instruments during their performances together. Haskil died (1960) from her injuries after falling at a railway station in Brussels. Charlie Chaplin was a close friend; he named Haskil among the three geniuses he’d known in his lifetime (the others were Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill). Part of her legacy is the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition, held biennially in Vevey, Switzerland.
Monday, 6 January 2025
It’s a brand new week, and we are pleased to be here with nutritious music for your hungry ears.
Thank you so much for listening to The Classical Station.
This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features recordings from the Minnesota Orchestra (founded 1903) and features music by Alexander Glazunov, Ludwig van Beethoven, Modest Mussorgsky, and more, conducted by Edo de Waart, Osmo Vanska, and Eiji Oue. Join us for the symphony at 8pm ET.
Andre Previn, c. 1975. (Photo by Don Smith, Getty Images, Radio Times)
Tomorrow (Tuesday), tune into Classical Café with George Leef for his weekly Legendary Performer feature; this week, it’s German-American pianist, composer, and conductor André Previn.
And then Wednesday (between 11am-12pm ET), George will give away a pair of tickets to North Carolina Opera’s production of Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán. It’s North Carolina Opera’s premier Spanish language opera about a glamorous opera star’s search for her long lost love along the mighty Amazon. Tune in to win!
On this date in the history of classical music:
Alexander Scriabin, c. 1910. (Unknown photographer – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Russian pianist and composer Alexander Scriabin in 1872 in Moscow. Scriabin was an early pianist who was utterly entranced by how pianos worked and began building pianos in his childhood and giving them away to family guests. He studied the instrument with Nikolai Zverev, who also taught Sergei Rachmaninoff and other well-known prodigies. At 16, Scriabin served in the Second Moscow Cadet Corps and then later entered studies in piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatory; he wrote his first large-scale masterpiece, Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 6, before graduating in 1892. Two years later, Scriabin made his professional debut as a pianist in Saint Petersburg and performed his own compositions; music publisher Mitrofan Belyayev began publishing Scriabin’s works the same year (the same publisher of works by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov). Late in 1897, Scriabin toured and performed in Russia and throughout Europe. He was appointed to the Moscow Conservatory as a teacher the next year and continued composing; among the compositions were his cycle of études, Op. 8, several sets of preludes, more piano sonatas, and his only piano concerto. Scriabin relocated to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1904 and wrote his Symphony No. 3, then spent several years performing in Europe and the U.S. and writing several symphonies and “poems” for the piano; he returned to Russia in 1909 and focused on composing. His final concert was in 1915 in St. Petersburg, marking the height of his career and the end of his life; Scriabin died of sepsis ten days later after a sore on his lip became infected.