Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental

Friday, February 27, 2004

Edvard Grieg's "Holberg Suite"—originally for piano but later arranged for string orchestra—was written to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of playwright Ludwig Holberg; tonight we hear it in a two-guitar incarnation, a transcription by the performers, the Folios Guitar Duo. We hear Enrico Caruso perform 'Vesti la giubba' from "I pagliacci" right before we experience Charles Dodge's "Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental," a duet between piano and Caruso's manipulated voice. Fun, and interesting. Even people who weren't Mozart fans fell in love with his Piano Concerto No. 21 as they watched Swedish director Bo Widerberg's 1967 film "Elvira Madigan." Whether you missed the film or not, don't miss this gorgeous performance by Maria Joao Pires.
» Evening Music playlist

Ah, how sweet the coffee tastes...

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Dvorak's "Slavonic Dances" have remained among the world's most popular works, which only goes to show what influenced Brahms to say that he would "be glad if something occurred to me as a main idea that occurs to Dvorak only by the way." Proving that Bach had a sense of humor is his "Coffee Cantata," which pits a stern father against a coffee-addicted daughter who won't obey his injunction to stop drinking the stuff. Who do you think wins? And so charmingly, too, especially as sung by Emma Kirkby! The swing and élan of Ervin Schulhoff's 1930 work for alto sax and piano, the "Hot Sonata," gives no hint of his tragic death in the Wulzburg concentration camp in 1942.
» Evening Music playlist

Mozart's Protégé

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

Stephen Hough performs Johann Nepomuk Hummel's scintillating Piano Concerto No. 2 this evening; the work demonstrates why Mozart would have taken the young Hummel into his home, teaching him free of charge. Marjan Mozetich's "The Passion of Angels," a concerto for two harps and orchestra, was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for Edmonton harpist Nora Bumanis and Calgary harpist Julia Shaw. The works is in one movement that portrays three degrees of passion: longing, desire, and ecstasy. You will find yourself transported to heaven. Speaking of heaven, is there a work more celestial than one of Bach’s cello suites? We hear the remarkable Pieter Wispelwey perform Suite No. 2 in d on a Baroque cello.
» Evening Music playlist

Folk Fest

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

We hear differing interpretations of English folk songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, and Ernest Tomlinson in Evening Music's first hour, and several present-day Finnish composers set our feet tapping with modern takes on Finnish folk material at evening's end. In between? Mikhail Pletnev's artistry illuminates the Beethoven "Appassionata" Sonata; the remarkable Rachel Podger plays Vivaldi's Violin Concerto, RV 347; and the Orpheus String Quartet gives us Ravel's beautiful Quartet in F, about which Debussy is supposed to have said: "In the name of God, I implore you not to change a note of your quartet."
» Evening Music playlist

Handel Strikes the Strings

Monday, February 23, 2004

Handel's Concerto grosso No. 9 and a bit of the "Royal Fireworks" start us off. Selections from Mozart's "Magic Flute" add to the evening's enchantment, before we whirl off into "Petrouchka"—the second ballet that Stravinsky composed for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes—as Claudio Abbado and the London Symphony Orchestra bring us the story of the ill-fated puppet/clown. And don't miss the magnificent Midori's performance of Poulenc's Violin Sonata, a work dedicated to the memory of Federico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet murdered in 1936 by Franco's Falangists. Near the end of the final movement, you can almost hear those gunshots...
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Sunday, February 22, 2004

John Adams says of "Fearful Symmetries": "I like the joining of the passionate adjective to the precise, almost clinical noun . . . Not long into the composition, I realized that the harmonic phrase structures were falling into almost maddeningly symmetrical patterns, and so the Blake phrase sprang to mind." According to Sarah Cahill, it is reminiscent of "the excessively complex and comical machine inventions of Dr. Seuss or Rube Goldberg." As our American Music Festival comes to an end, we add some European composers to the mix: there's Gershwin and Gluck, Bernstein and Bach, and the Debussy "Nocturnes," which were inspired by the "dusk paintings" or "Nocturnes" of that most American of painters, James McNeill Whistler.
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Saturday, February 21, 2004

Leonard Bernstein's "Songfest" is subtitled "A Cycle of American Poems for Six Singers and Orchestra" and sets texts by twelve American poets, including Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, e. e. cummings, Conrad Aiken, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edgar Allan Poe. Bernstein himself conducts the National Symphony Orchestra, joined by singers Clamma Dale, Rosalind Elias, Nancy Williams, Neil Rosenshein, John Reardon, and Donald Gramm. Howard Hanson and George Gershwin are among other American composers featured as our American Music Festival continues.
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Friday, February 20, 2004

Once Marga Richter's "Quantum Quirks of a Quick Quaint Quark" and Michael Torke's "Jasper" have set their merry tone, we hear Henry Cowell's "Persian Set," composed after his 1956 winter stay in Iran; we play it this evening in anticipation of the Islamic New Year, Al-Hijra, celebrated tomorrow. The Bang on a Can All-Stars perform "I Buried Paul" by Michael Gordon, reminding us that Gordon's "Gotham" is having its world premiere at Zankel Hall on February 27th. The three movements of "American Dance Suite" are David Amram's tribute to the Native American Cheyenne Nation of Plains People, the African-American blues masters of the South, and the Cajun style of Louisiana and East Texas.
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Thursday, February 19, 2004

As you marvel at George Rochberg's ecstatic "Transcendental Variations," you may notice an affinity with the Samuel Barber "Adagio" that precedes it. According to Eric Ewazen, his concerto for oboe and string orchestra, "Down a River of Time," was commissioned by oboist Linda Strommen as a memorial to her father. As Ewazen had recently lost his own father, the piece became "a very personal meditation on life and death." It was the Boston Symphony that commissioned Andre Previn's Violin Concerto "Anne-Sophie," which he wrote with Ms. Mutter, his future bride, in mind. It's film music evening, so we hear suites from Bernstein's "On the Waterfront" and Copland’s "The Heiress," before we rip into the Ellington/Strayhorn "Suite Thursday."
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Robert Beaser's "Mountain Songs," composed for flute and guitar, derive mostly from traditional Appalachian tunes, but even if you recognize the melodies, you'll find his versions unlike any others. Relax after dancing along with Leonard Bernstein's "Fancy Free" while you enjoy Philip Glass's Violin Concerto and visit Charles Ives's "Three Places in New England." This evening's tour of American music ends with William Russo's "Three Pieces for Blues Band and Symphony Orchestra," commissioned in 1968 by Ravinia in response to the efforts of conductor Seiji Ozawa.
» Evening Music playlist

American Music Week

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Lou Harrison's "Last Symphony," commissioned by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, embodies his interest in combining the musics of native Americans, Asians, and medieval times. The last movement features Al Jarreau reciting and singing Navaho "Coyote Stories." The music will move you and the stories amuse you! As Harrison (who died a year ago in February 1003) said: "Melody is the grace of music and the beauty of its work." While the topic is one of melody, don't miss Dawn Upshaw singing an aria from Carlisle Floyd's Susannah, or Cecilia Bartoli singing an Antonio Salieri aria.
» Evening Music playlist

Presidential Suite

Monday, February 16, 2004

Composer Jack Gottlieb writes that his "Presidential Suite" is "a celebration of America's priceless heritage of liberty. Inspired by the wisdom and whimsy of [seven] of our most colorful presidents...." Presidents quoted in the suite are Kennedy, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Coolidge. John Corigliano's symphony was composed to mourn the friends he lost to AIDS; the first-movement subtitle, "Of Rage and Remembrance," signals a work of extraordinary beauty and passion. Scott Joplin rags, a Paul Creston symphony, and a Harold Shapero quartet also feature prominently in this evening's program.
» Evening Music playlist

Concentrating on Copland

Sunday, February 15, 2004

Concentrating on Copland: William Warfield sings his "Old American Songs"; Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops give us a rousing "Billy the Kid"; James Sedares leads the Phoenix Symphony in the suite from the television opera "The Tender Land"; and finally, Hugh Wolff and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra bring us the familiar and favorite "Appalachian Spring." In addition, the voices of Charles Ives, Roy Harris, Amy Beach, Joan Tower, and Stephen Foster are also heard. Join our American-music celebration and bask in the beauty of these extraordinary works..
» Evening Music playlist

Many Moods of Love

Saturday, February 14, 2004

WNYC brings you many moods of love, from Stephane Grapelli and Yehudi Menuhin fiddling their jazzy way through Richard Rodgers' "My Funny Valentine" to Placido Domingo's and Renee Fleming's soaring duet as the ill-fated lovers in Verdi's "Otello." Our focus on American music continues as well, with John Corigliano's "Troubadours" and "Valentine Waltzes" from that bad boy of music, George Antheil. Cuddle up and dream along with us of love....
» Evening Music playlist

Evening Music's Valentine

Friday, February 13, 2004

Commissioned by Charles Wadsworth for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center—and performed here by its members—Ned Rorem's "Winter Pages" uses an unprecedented combination of clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello, and piano. Rorem calls the 12-piece suite "a diary of the season" in which the entries "shift their mood according to the weather." The second section evokes a Whittier poem, "Snowbound":

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of grey,
and, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.

Other evocative movement titles: "Around the house the flakes fly faster," Moments fly by like a snowstorm," and "Stone Snowballs." Curl up by our virtual fire and listen to ever-changing wintry moods.
» Evening Music playlist

Lincoln Portrait

Thursday, February 12, 2004

"But when he spoke of democracy, this is what he said... This is what Abe Lincoln said." So narrates Adlai Stevenson, as Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra bring us Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait." As we continue to explore our rich American musical heritage, we offer you a wide range of genres and styles, such as Zez Confrey's urbane and witty "Moods of a New Yorker," Gershwin's symphonic pictures of "Porgy and Bess," William Grant Still's evocation of "The Southwest," and two groups of songs with texts by Emily Dickinson from Copland and Andre Previn.
» Evening Music playlist

From Don Juan to the Orient

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

The Shanghai String Quartet and the Silk Road Ensemble refresh our sonic palate with exotica from the Orient. More conventional fare includes Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 1, Beethoven's Symphony No. 4, the Ravel "Sonatine," and an arrangement of Brahm's Clarinet Quintet for viola and string orchestra by Juri Bashmet. A reminder to those who find arrangements anathema: Brahms himself suggested the viola as a replacement for the clarinet.
» Evening Music playlist

Jerry Goldsmith

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

Jerry Goldsmith's modernist sensibility and enormous mastery of music history and structure contributed to the wide variety of moods evoked in his film and television scores (over 200 of them!). We hear music from "Under Fire" and "Twilight Zone," as well as his cantata "Christus Apollo," which has a text by science fiction author Ray Bradbury. Pinchas Zukerman's viola portrays Byron's Childe Harold with fire and flair, joining the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit to bring us Berlioz’s "Harold in Italy."
» Evening Music playlist

Irish Interlude

Monday, February 09, 2004

Our Irish interlude begins with George Gershwin's "Irish Waltz"; it continues with some traditional jigs, followed by Dublin-born Charles Villiers Stanford's "Irish Rhapsody" No. 6 for violin and orchestra, a work full of Irish tunes. And then there's the oboe. We hear two works featuring the reed instead of the voice from a 20th-century pop songwriter and a 19th-century opera composer: Alec Wilder's Oboe Concerto and Amilcare Ponchielli's Capriccio. Could those guys write tunes! (and that ain't blarney)....
» Evening Music playlist

Musical Romances

Sunday, February 08, 2004

Sunday Evening Music's romances include Faure's for cello and piano, played by Steven Isserlis and Pascal Devoyon; Grieg's Variations on an Old Norwegian Romance, Neeme Jarvi conducting the Gothenburg Symphony; Schumann's Three Romances, interpreted by pianist Wilhelm Kempff; and "Der Arme Peter" from Schumann's Romances and Ballades, sung by the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Departure's from the theme: Hummel's Septet in d, Dvorak’s Symphonic Variations, and Poulenc's Piano Concerto. Music to fill the heart . . ..
» Evening Music playlist

Scriabin Magic and More

Saturday, February 07, 2004

Written when the composer was only 24 years old, the achingly beautiful Piano Concerto in F-sharp Minor is filled with the familiar filigree typical of Alexander Scriabin, but merely hints at the mystic ecstasy characteristic of his later writing. Scriabin himself was the soloist in the 1897 premiere. Tonight's performance demonstrates how much pianist Anatoli Ugorski liked performing the work along with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony. Enjoy, as well, the more conventional "Paris" Symphony of Mozart and Faure's exquisite Cello Sonata No. 1..
» Evening Music playlist

Master and String Quartet

Friday, February 06, 2004

"You can't imagine what it is like to hear such a giant's footsteps constantly behind one," Brahms complained about Beethoven, that master of the string quartet. An impassioned performance by the Takács Quartet of the String Quartet in C Minor—the first Brahms permitted to be published—reveals a rigor and resolve worthy of his predecessor along with evident mastery of the form. Haydn's Violin Concerto No. 3 in A also delights us, as Simon Standage fiddles along with The English Concert..
» Evening Music playlist

Preludes to Live Concerts in NYC

Thursday, February 05, 2004

Tonight on Evening Music listeners will hear a section from "Weather," by Michael Gordon -- a prelude to a performance of the complete piece at Miller Theater on Feb. 12th. The Thursday night film music feature at 9 PM will feature music by John Williams (composer of Star Wars, etc.) who'll conduct a concert of film music at Lincoln Center on the 10th. Also tonight, Evening Music airs a brand new recording of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 conducted by Daniele Gatti.
» Evening Music playlist

Boulez Conducts Mahler

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

Tonight on Evening Music listen to distinguished conductor Pierre Boulez conduct the Cleveland Orchestra in Mahler's Symphony No. 4, with soprano Juliane Banse. This innovative performance will alert listeners to next week's Carnegie Hall concert when Boulez will be conducting the Cleveland in Mahler's Adagio from Symphony No. 10 in F-sharp Major.
» Evening Music playlist

A Polarized Program

Tuesday, February 03, 2004

Tonight on Evening Music, David Garland presents Ralph Vaughn Williams' Sinfonia Antarctica (Symph. No. 7), depicting the South Pole, and "Arctic Dreams" by American composer Michael Colgrass, depicting the lives of the Inuit, or Eskimos, and the land they live in near the North Pole. Also, it's the centenary of composer Luigi Dallapiccola, and we'll hear his "Tartiniana" for Violin and Orchestra.
» Evening Music playlist

A Birthday Celebration

Monday, February 02, 2004

Tonight on Evening Music, David Garland presents selections that will be played by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in their upcoming Carnegie Hall concert; listeners will also hear Orpheus' own recording of Stravinsky's Danse Concertante. Also, in celebration of the brilliant pianist Ursula Oppens' 60th birthday, Evening Music plays her recording of "The People United Will Never be Defeated," by Frederick Rzewski.
» Evening Music playlist