This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, 17-18 May 2025
Come spend the weekend with great classical music on The Classical Station!
Here’s what’s coming up this weekend:
Saturday at 1pm, Saturday On Point features The Legend of Joseph (Josephs Legende), Op. 63, by Richard Strauss. Tune in and explore this seldom-heard ballet with us.
Then, join Haydn Jones at 6pm ET for the Saturday Evening Request Program. (Here’s the playlist; make requests for next week’s programs here.
On Sunday at 6pmET, Preview! features the first commercial recording of French composer Fernande Decrück’s Sonata in C Sharp for Saxophone and Orchestra. Also, violinist Reynaud Capucon and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Violin Concerto Number 2 in D Major, and Deborah Nagy and Mark Edwards perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonata in G Minor.
Join Tom Hayakawa for the best in new classical releases.
HEADS-UP: Giveaway (This time, it’s a book!)
Next Wednesday (May 20th, between 11am-12pm ET) during Classical Café, George Leef will give away a copy of Allegro (published by Other Press), a thrilling historical mystery novel by Ariel Dorfman that stars Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Tune in to win a copy!
On these dates in the history of classical music:
Erik Satie, c. 1920. (Photo by Henri Manuel – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
French composer Erik Satie was born May 17, 1866, in Honfleur, Normandy. Satie trained as a pianist and attended the Conservatoire de Paris, but never graduated; instead, Satie went to work as a performing pianist in Montmartre’s café-cabarets and began composing his many works, mostly for solo piano. He attended the Schola Cantorum and was a more successful student, then began a career of collaboration with other composers and musicians (including Les Six) and artists (like Jean Cocteau, Serge Diaghilev, Pablo Picasso), and was an inspiration to other composers like Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Francis Poulenc, as well as John Cage and John Adams. Most of Satie’s compositions were for solo piano, but he also wrote orchestral music and vocal works.
Karl Goldmark, date unknown. (Photo by Fritz Luckhardt – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Hungarian-Viennese violinist and composer Karl Goldmark (Károly) was born May 18, 1830, in Keszthely, Hungary. Goldmark had early training as a violinist at the academy of Sopron, then the Vienna Conservatory. As a composer, he was self-taught as a composer, and worked as a violinist in theatre orchestras; taught private lessons (Jean Sibelius was one of his students); and was a music journalist. Goldmark helped form the Vienna Wagner Society in 1872 (to honor the composer who was his largest musical influence). His chamber music was well-known and often performed in his lifetime, but he also wrote operas and other vocal works and lieder; symphonies and other works for orchestra; and music for solo piano.
Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Listeners, we thank you for your support of The Classical Station since 1978. Please consider a gift of support for great classical music!
On this date in the history of classical music:
Judith Somogi, c. 1981. (Press photo by Christian Steiner)
It’s the birthdate of American pianist and conductor Judith Somogi in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. Somogi was a versatile musician who studied violin, piano, and organ at Juilliard School of Music and at Berkshire Music Center. In the 1960s, she worked as a private piano teacher, then as a pianist and chorus master for the New York City Opera (NYCO); she became the first woman conductor of the NYCO (1974) and served as assistant conductor to Thomas Schippers at Italy’s Spoleto Festival and to Leopold Stokowski at the American Symphony Orchestra. In 1977, Somogi was named music director of the Utica Symphony Orchestra, the first woman to hold a permanent orchestral post in the U.S. She conducted orchestras all over the U.S. and Europe, and was the first conductor at the Oper Frankfurt (1982-1987) and the first woman to conduct in a major opera house in Italy (Teatro de Fenice, 1984). She was battling cancer when she retired in 1957, and she died the following year.
Monday, 12 May 2025
Hello, Listeners!
Spend your week with us and some great classical music.
This evening at 7pm ET, join Vince Tillona for Drop the Needle and the warmth of vinyl recordings. This week, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 along with music by Jean Sibelius and a little operatic magic from Giuseppe Verdi.
And at 8pm ET, Monday Night at the Symphony will feature the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and celebrate the births of Jules Massenet and Gabriel Faure with performances conducted by Sylvain Cambreling, James DePriest, and more. See you at the symphony!
Tuesday on Classical Café, join George Leef for his Legendary Performer: violinist Josef Suk (grandson of composer Josef Suk and great-grandson of Antonín Dvořák).
And on Wednesday, (May 14th, between 11am-12pm ET), George will give away a pair of tickets to see the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra & Master Chorale performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s monumental Requiem.
On this date in classical music history:
Giovanni Battista Viotti. Antoine Maurin, c. 1827-1830. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti in 1753 in Fontanetto Po. Viotti was taken into a household in Turin for his early music education and then served in the House of Savoy before touring as a virtuoso violinist and settling in Paris (1782). Viotti was a well-known and popular performer in Paris; he served in the court at Versailles and then founded the Théâtre de Monsieur in 1788, where he produced opera written by his friend Luigi Cherubini. He moved to London during the French Revolution and found fame as a violinist and as acting manager of Italian opera at the King’s Theatre and leader and director of the theatre’s orchestra. He was ordered to leave the country during England’s wars with France (1798) and wound up near Hamburg; Viotti managed a wine retailer but still performed privately. He eventually returned to England, became a British citizen in 1811, and helped create the Philharmonic Society of London. He served as director of the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris (1819-1821) but returned to London and died there in 1824. Viotti’s legacy includes a reputation as the founding father of 19th-century French violin pedagogy and he was an influence on many of the violinists of the period, including Niccolò Paganini. His 29 violin concertos were an inspiration for Ludwig van Beethoven and are still performed. The Viotti International Music Competition and the Viotti International Music Festival are held annually in Italy in his memory.