This Week at The Classical Station

This Week at The Classical Station

by Chrissy Keuper

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Saturday and Sunday, 15-16 February 2025

We welcome you to the weekend with Great Classical Music!

 

Saturday:

At 1pm ET, Saturday On Point features Andre Previn conducting the London Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s Cinderella, plus more music written for ballet and dance.

 

And at 6pm ET, Haydn Jones hosts the Saturday Evening Request Program. See what’s playing and then make your requests and dedications for next week!

 

Sunday:

This week’s Great Sacred Music includes the Elora Singers, the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and the ensemble Cantilena performing works by Thomas Tallis, Arvo Pärt, César Franck, and others. Join us at 8am ET, right after Sing for Joy.

And at 6pm ET, Tom Hayakawa will feature recent releases from the classical music world on Preview!, including the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A, K. 201, and Emmanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavalos, and Yo-Yo Ma performing the trio arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B flat, Op. 60.

 

On these dates in classical music history:

German-American piano maker Henry E. Steinway (née Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg) was born in Wolfshagen im Harz, Lower Saxony, on February 15, 1797. Steinway endured a turbulent childhood, often without family around, as his father and brothers fought for the German Army in the Napoleonic conflicts. At 15, he was orphaned and he joined the German Army in the volunteer corps of Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Steinway was a soldier until 1822, when he began working as a carpenter, then an apprentice to an organ builder in the town of Goslar. He learned to play the organ himself and began building instruments, first guitars and zithers, then pianos that slowly increased in size; he made his first square piano in 1835 and his first grand piano in 1836 (now at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art). In 1850, Steinway emigrated to New York City with five of his sons; they all worked for other instrument companies until they started their own production as Steinway and Sons, which remains in production to this day.

British bassoonist Gwydion Brooke (née Frederick James Gwydion Holbrooke) was born in Newmarket, Suffolk, on February 16, 1912. His father was composer Joseph Holbrooke, who demanded that Brooke start piano lessons early and then learn the bassoon at age 11. Brooke liked the bassoon well enough to stick with it and attain a 1928 scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music; a year later, he was playing in an orchestra in Hastings, then the London Philharmonic Orchestra as second bassoon (1932), then first bassoon in the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra (1935). When war broke out in 1939, Brooke joined a Scottish artillery regiment, serving in Italy and north Africa, but returned to the bassoon in 1945 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947 (when he changed his surname to Brooke). In 1961, Brooke was named principal bassoonist of the Philharmonia Orchestra, where he stayed until his retirement in 1979. Clarinettist Thea King called him the finest bassoonist she’d ever known.

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Friday, 14 February 2025

Happy Friday, Listeners!

We send you love for Valentine’s Day and thank you for listening and for supporting

The Classical Station.

 

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.

 

On today’s date in the history of classical music:

It’s the birthdate of Spanish classical guitarist and composer Fernando Sor, born in Barcelona into a family of career soldiers in 1778. Sor was destined to carry on the tradition, but his father introduced him to the guitar and to Italian opera and he was hooked on music for the rest of his life. He was a guitar virtuoso early in his life (his peers later considered him to be the finest guitarist in the world); he began writing songs in Latin as a child and developed his own music notation system. He was enrolled at the Barcelona Cathedral school after the director discovered his musical talent, but the death of Sor’s father left the family without enough funding to continue his schooling there. He was briefly enrolled at the choir school of the monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat, but his mother placed him in military school instead. By the time Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain in 1808, Sor had been promoted to captain in Córdoba and began composing nationalistic music for the guitar and playing with traveling military bands that performed music in protest of the invasion. But with the first defeat of the Spanish army, Sor took a position in the administration of the occupying government. In 1813, the Spanish managed to expel the French; fearing retribution, Sor left Spain and never returned. Though he had left his homeland, the end of his military career meant that he could focus on music. In 1815, he gained fame in London as a performing guitarist and teacher (guitar and voice); he spent 1823-1826 in Moscow, then toured Europe as a performer for more than a year. Sor eventually settled in Paris in 1827 and wrote the majority of his works for guitar during the last decade of his life. He was best known for those compositions for solo guitar, though he also wrote an opera (at the age of 19), three symphonies, guitar duos, piano music, lots of songs, a Mass (in honor of the death of his daughter), and at least two ballets: Cendrillon (Cinderella) and Hercule et Omphale.

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Thursday, 13 February 2025

Happy Friday Eve, All!

Tomorrow is All-Request Friday AND it’s Valentine’s Day, so check out the playlist to see when your favorites and special dedications are scheduled to broadcast.

We’ll be here with love and drama and wonderful music.

 

Speaking of love, drama, and wonderful music (as well as some comedy), this evening’s Thursday Night Opera House is the 1984-1985 recording of Sir Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Choir, and legendary soloists in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio). Konstanze (Edita Gruberova), her English maid Blonde (Kathleen Battle), her betrothed Belmonte (Gösta Winbergh), and Belmonte’s valet Pedrillo (Heinz Zednik) have been abducted by pirates and sold as slaves to Bassa Selim (Will Quadflieg), who has fallen in love with Konstanze. Join Dr. Jay Pierson at 7pm ET.

 

On this day in classical music history:

It’s the birthdate of Israeli-British violinist Yfrah Neaman in Sidon, Lebanon, in 1923. Neaman’s family moved to Tel Aviv in his early childhood, where he began violin lessons, and then to Paris in 1932, where he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and won the Premier Prix at age 14 (1937). Neaman continued his studies in London and in Paris, settling in London in the 1940s when Germany invaded France. His earliest performances were in London and included the wartime National Gallery lunchtime concerts and his premiere with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1944. After the war, Neaman made pioneering recordings of music by American composers, many of which were broadcast by the BBC, as well as from composer manuscripts that were unmarked by editors (‘Urtext’ manuscripts). From 1958 until his death in 2003, he was Professor of Violin and then Head of Advanced Solo Studies at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and gave masterclasses worldwide; he was also a consultant to Wells Cathedral Music School for more than 30 years.

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Tuesday, 11 February 2024

Hello, Listeners!

Get those requests and dedications in early this week because All-Request Friday is Valentine’s Day. You can give your Valentines the gift of classical music and show them how you REALLY feel (and then do it again on the Saturday Evening Request Program).
Show us (and them) the love, Listeners!

 

On this date in the history of classical music:

British conductor Sir Alexander Gibson was born in Motherwell, Scotland in 1926. Gibson’s parents took him to see the opera Madame Butterfly at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow when he was 12 and he was so enamored that he later founded the Scottish Opera (1962). The young pianist and organist’s professional career began at 18 when Gibson was named organist at Hillhead Congregational Church, Glasgow, while he also studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, then the University of Glasgow. World War II interrupted his studies and he served with the Royal Signals Band, then continued studies from 1948 at the Royal College of Music in London; the Mozarteum in Salzburg; and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Gibson was Assistant Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (1952-1954) and he conducted the Glasgow Grand Opera Society (1954); in 1957, he was named musical director of Sadler’s Wells (the youngest person ever appointed) and was appointed principal conductor and artistic director of the Scottish National Orchestra (the first Scot to hold the position, which he did until 1984); and in 1962, he launched the Scottish Opera and served as director until 1986 and then as conductor laureate. Gibson also created the Edinburgh Festival Chorus (1965) and conducted many orchestras throughout the Americas, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan. Read more about him here: t.ly/ZmU6n

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Monday, 10 February 2025

A very good Monday to all of you!
It’s going to be a great week, especially if it’s filled with Great Classical Music.

This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony features the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under conductors Eduardo Mata and Andrew Litton, performing works by Ernest Chausson, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.  Meet us at the symphony at 8pm ET.

 

Tomorrow (Tuesday) on Classical Café, George Leef presents his weekly Legendary Performer feature; this week, it’s American composer Amy Beach.

And on Wednesday (February 12th between 11am-12pm ET), George will give away a pair of tickets to Mallarmé Music’s 2025 North Carolina HIP Music Festival.

Tune in for a chance to see some of the most talented ensembles in North Carolina classical music.

 

On this date in classical music history:

A very Happy Birthday to American soprano Leontyne Price, born in Laurel, Mississippi, in 1927. Her beginnings as a singer were at home and in church; her parents were both children of Methodist ministers, and her mother sang in the church choir while her father played tuba in the church band. Price studied at Central State University in Ohio and then moved on to the Juilliard School, where she made her public debut in opera. A concert tour, collaborations with composers including Virgil Thompson and Samuel Barber, and appearances with the world’s foremost opera companies followed (on-stage and televised). Price was the first African-American soprano to sing on television and to perform leading roles to international acclaim. She had a long tenure with the Metropolitan Opera (1961-1985); won 13 Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award (and more than any other classical singer); was the 1964 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom; and was among the first to receive the Opera Honors (2008, National Endowment for the Arts). She toured and performed regularly until 1997, when she turned her attention toward teaching master classes internationally and writing a book version of the opera Aida for children (which Tim Rice and Elton John turned into a musical). Price gave her (perhaps) final public performance on September 30, 2001, singing in a memorial concert for the events of September 11. She is also featured in The Opera House (2017, a documentary by Susan Froemke) and there is talk of a documentary about Price, herself.  

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Wednesday, 12 February 2025

Hello, Listeners! We thank you SO MUCH for your support and for spending your time with us.

If you’re a business owner, you can help support The Classical Station by becoming a Business Sponsor and reaching hundreds of thousands of listeners.

You can also match the contributions of your employees when they donate to The Classical Station.

Want to know more? And/or reach out to our Business Support specialist.

 

On this date in classical music history:

A very Happy Birthday to Dutch harpist Lavinia Meijer in South Korea in 1983. Meijer began harp lessons at age nine and just a couple of years later was accepted into Utrecht Conservatorium’s Young Talent program. She graduated from the conservatory (2003) and attended graduate school at Conservatorium van Amsterdam (until 2005), then made her debut in 2007 at Carnegie Hall in a concert of solo harp works. Meijer has performed throughout the world with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Israel Philharmonic; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; and many other orchestras. She often performs and records new classical music, new transcriptions (like her 2012 album of Philip Glass works that she transcribed for harp), and works composed especially for her.