Concerts from the Library of Congress, On Air, Broadcasting Since Radio Was New

Conductor, composer and radio host Bill McGlaughlin is a master communicator [“Saint Paul Sunday”, “Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin”], winner of broadcasting’s coveted Peabody and Dushkin awards.

The Library of Congress and WETA Classical 90.9 launched a new radio series on April 1, 2016, presenting 13 one-hour programs produced from the Library's 2015-2016 concert season. Produced by Classic Digital Syndications, the series is offered free of charge to public radio stations nationwide. The series is hosted by Bill McGlaughlin, with special guest hosts David Plylar, Nicholas Alexander Brown, James Wintle, Nicholas Kitchen, and WETA's Dan DeVany. Read news release

Bill McGlaughlin, winner of the prestigious Dushkin and Peabody broadcasting awards, will host the programs. Joining him as guest hosts are expert curators and concert staff from the Library's Music Division, including concert producers David Plylar and Nicholas Alexander Brown and music specialist James Wintle. Violinist Nicholas Kitchen and Dan DeVany will also participate as guest hosts. Their encounters with such rarities as a manuscript of a cantata by J.S. Bach illuminate the performances and enhance the listener's experience. Moments of music history come alive in excerpts from several memorable concerts by legendary figures who have performed on the Library's stage, including Béla Bartók and Leopold Stokowski.

With our intimate, 500-seat concert hall, admired worldwide for its acoustics; a notable collection of rare instruments; and the world’s largest music archive, the Nation’s Library is also a major performing arts center with a long track record of media innovation.. That first broadcast was carried by a fledgling pre-network group anchored by the Naval Broadcasting Service in Arlington, Virginia, and stations in Schenectady and New York City. Two years before the Federal Communications Commission was established, the Library’s pioneering thinkers had already harnessed the astonishing power of what was then a new medium to take its concerts to a broad audience across the American heartland.  In the 1930’s, entrepreneurial partnerships with the five-year-old National Broadcasting Company, and later, CBS and  the Mutual Broadcasting Network, ensured a national audience for live concert broadcasts from the Coolidge, drawing millions of listeners.

CD Syndications is a leading producer of classical music programming for the national market. Headed by Victor Muenzer, the company is known for innovative programs like “Indianapolis On-The-Air” and “Center Stage from Wolf Trap,” produced in association with WETA-FM. Vic Muenzer is the founder of two record labels and a production company; he has produced over 70 recordings, winning a Grammy for a 1994 recording of the Mozart and Beethoven wind quintets with Daniel Barenboim and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

2016 90th Anniversary Radio Series

Links for listening to each program are included below:

David Plylar

Program 1 - Brahms and Beach

St. Lawrence Quartet with Pedja Muzijevic, piano
Kim Kashkashian, viola and Péter Nagy, Piano
With guest host Anne McLean, Senior Producer for Concerts and Special Projects, Library of Congress Music Division

In this hour you hear the Library’s glorious Stradivari instruments in Amy Beach’s lush, rhapsodic piano quintet from 1907.  Beach was very successful as both pianist and composer, with wide exposure to American and European audiences.  The Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered her Piano Concerto--with Beach as soloist--as well as her Gaelic Symphony. Accompanying her quintet: a beautiful performance of a Brahms sonata, heard on the Library’s remarkable 1690 “Tuscan-Medici,” one of only ten Stradivari violas in the world.  

BEACH: Quintet for piano and strings in F-sharp minor, op. 67
BRAHMS: Sonata in E-flat major for viola and piano, op. 120, no. 2

Listen to Program 1 (on PRX.org)

Program 2 - Bach Collegium Japan

with Masaaki Suzuki, Conductor & Artistic Director
Joanne Lunn, soprano
With guest host Dan DeVany, vice president and general manager for radio, WETA Classical 90.9

Occupying the very peak of historically informed performance worldwide, the brilliant, critically acclaimed Bach Collegium Japan is noted for integrity, impeccable style, and moving, luminous performances. Bach guru Masaaki Suzuki invites British soprano Joanne Lunn to add her ravishing voice to a Bach cantata, and you’ll hear some dazzling instrumental playing, including a knockout Vivaldi recorder concerto performance from Andreas Bohlen.

VIVALDI:   Oboe Concerto in C major, RV 450   
J.S. BACH: Cantata no. 51, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” BWV 51
VIVALDI:   Concerto in  C major for recorder, strings and continuo, RV 443

Listen to Program 2 (on PRX.org)

Program 3 - Michelangelo Quartet

This quartet of chamber music all-stars made a rare U.S. appearance in November 2015, offering a masterly interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s  first “Razumovsky” string quartet. Paired with it in this program is a performance by the excellent Claremont Trio of three evocative, short pieces by Helen Grime, inspired by chalk and pastel miniatures by American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in F major, op. 59, no. 1 (“Razumovsky”)
GRIME: Three Whistler Miniatures
       The Little Note in Yellow and Gold; Lapis Lazuli; The Violet Note

Listen to Program 3 (on PRX.org)

Program 4 - Music for a While

Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano
Jonathan Cohen, harpsichord and portative organ
Thomas Dunford, archlute
With guest host James Wintle, music specialist, Library of Congress Music Division

A gleaming, radiant voice and elegant musicianship have won this regal Swedish singer a large and growing fan base in opera houses and concert halls worldwide. A charming closeup of this major artist, heard in repertoire you won’t have heard from her before:  Renaissance gems by English and French master composers including Purcell, Dowland, Charpentier and Rameau—plus an unexpected jewel from Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk.

PURCELL:   “Music for a while”
DOWLAND: “Come again, sweet love doth now invite”
         “Can she excuse my wrongs”
         “Fine knacks for ladies”
           Lachrimae Pavan, archlute solo
PURCELL:   “Fairest isle,” from King Arthur
***********
From the Archives:
BEN JONSON: “Have You Seen But a Bright Lily Grow?” from The Devil is an Ass, Basil Rathbone, speaker
ROBERT JOHNSON: “Have you seen the bright lily grow?,” Robert White, tenor
excerpted from a Library of Congress concert by The Consort Players, November 29, 1962
************
COUPERIN: Les barricades mystérieuses from 6e ordre, Second livre de pièces de clavecin, Jonathan Cohen, harpsichord
LAMBERT: “Ma bergère est tendre et fidele”
DE VISÉE:   Chaconne in d minor, Thomas Dunford, archlute
CHARPENTIER: Chanson à danser: “Celle qui fait mon tourment”
RAMEAU: Les sauvages
BJÖRK:Cover her face”

Listen to Program 4 (on PRX.org)

Nicholas Brown

Program 5 - The Virtuoso Horn

Eric Ruske, French horn | Jennifer Frautschi, violin | Gloria Chien, piano
With guest host Nicholas Alexander Brown, Concert Producer and Music Specialist, Library of Congress Music Division

Don’t miss this gorgeous, soaring performance of Johannes Brahms’s op. 40 Horn Trio, plus a look at the composer’s manuscript of the work. And from our archives: more excellent horn playing in a vintage performance of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll, written as a“Symphonic Birthday Greeting” for the composer’s wife,  Cosima. The conductor is Leopold Stokowski, a longtime friend of the Library, who studied scores here for decades, conducting not only concerts, but recording experiments on our stage. LC concert producer Nicholas Alexander Brown, both a French horn player and a conductor, is the perfect guest host.

BRAHMS:  Trio in E-flat major, op. 40, for violin, horn and piano
WAGNER: Siegfried Idyll, performed by The Symphony of the Air (Coolidge Auditorium concert, 1960)

Listen to Program 5 (on PRX.org)

Nicholas Kitchen

Program 6 - Bartók and Borromeo

With guest host Nicholas Kitchen, the Borromeo Quartet's first violinist

Hear the charismatic Borromeo players in a riveting performance of Béla Bartók’s magisterial Fifth Quartet (1935), a landmark Library of Congress Coolidge Foundation commission. Recorded on our Stradivari instruments, their concert was a special 90th anniversary marathon performance of all six quartets by the composer. Finishing the program, we share some moments from Bartok’s own Library concert, a now-legendary duo recital appearance with violinist Josef Szigeti.

BARTÓK: Quartet no. 5 (Library of Congress commission)   
BEETHOVEN: Cavatina, from the string quartet in B-flat major, op. 130
*********
From the archives:
BARTÓK: Rhapsody no. 1, for violin and piano
(excerpted from the historic Library of Congress concert by Béla Bartók and Josef Szigeti on April 13, 1940)

Listen to Program 6 (on PRX.org)

Program 7 - Apollo's Fire: The Power of Love

Jeannette Sorrell, Artistic Director and Conductor
Amanda Forsythe, Soprano

“Apollo’s Fire is burning hot…setting the classical world aflame,” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) with packed houses in Europe and at home, and five bestselling CDs on the Billboard classical chartsTune in for an exhilarating hour with The U.S.A.’s hottest Baroque band” (Classical Music Magazine): scintillating portrayals—vocal and instrumental—of the delights of first love and the delusions and madness of passion.

UCCELLINI: Aria quinta, sopra la Bergamasca, arr. Sorrell (from Sonate, arie et correnti, op. 3)
HANDEL: “Il primo ardor” from Ariodante, HWV 33
           Grave from Oboe Concerto no. 3, HWV 287
           “Geloso tormento” from Almira, HWV 1
VIVALDI: Concerto for Four Violins in B minor, RV 580, op. 3/10
HANDEL: “Piangerò la sorte miafrom Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17
PURCELL: “If Love’s a Sweet Passion,” from The Fairy Queen

Listen to Program 7 (on PRX.org)

David Plylar

Program 8 - Schumann Sampler

Richard Goode, piano
     and from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center:

Daniel Hope, violin | Paul Neubauer, viola | David Finckel, cello | Wu Han, piano
With guest host David H. Plylar, concert producer and music specialist, Library of Congress Music Division

You’ll hear memorable performances of two Robert Schumann works in this hour, from artists well-known in the world’s great concert halls. His second piano quartet, with its romantic, graceful Andante cantabile movement, is a favorite for chamber music lovers. The performers are a formidable quartet of star players and good friends: Daniel Hope, violin; Paul Neubauer, viola; David Finckel, cello; and Wu Han, piano. And to open, pianist Richard Goode performs the elusive, mercurial Humoreske, a rarely-heard piece of many moods.

SCHUMANN: Humoreske, for solo piano, op. 20
SCHUMANN: Quartet in E-flat major for piano and strings, op. 47

Listen to Program 8 (on PRX.org)

Program 9 - Cello Collection

Alban Gerhardt and Anne-Marie McDermott
Amit Peled and Noreen Polera
Lynn Harrell and Victor Ascuncion

For cello-lovers in particular, a sampling from concerts old and new. Three  stellar cellists pair with three esteemed pianists, offering a varied program that showcases the exquisite range of the cello, in all its elegance and passion.

BARBER: Sonata for cello and piano, op. 6
BLOCH: From Jewish Life
SCHUBERT:Sonata in A minor (“Arpeggione”), D. 821

Listen to Program 9 (on PRX.org)

Nicholas Brown

Program 10 - Handel and Haydn Society at 200

Harry Christophers, Artistic Director
With guest host Nicholas Alexander Brown, concert producer and music specialist, Library of Congress Music Division

The superlative musicians of Boston’s famed H + H travel to Washington as part of a splendid Bicentennial celebration honoring 200 years of excellence. Founded in 1815, the venerable Society is the nation’s oldest continuously performing arts organization, with a storied history that has seen the U.S. premieres of masterworks like Handel’s Messiah and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. Harry Christophers conducts a 26-voice choir and chamber ensemble in works by William Byrd, Henry Purcell and J.S. Bach, and a new work co-commissioned by the Society and the Library: Gabriela Lena Frank’s “My angel, his name is freedom.”

KENT: “Hear my prayer, O God”
MOZART: “Almighty God! When round thy shrine”
LINLEY: “Bow down thine ear, O Lord”
FRANK: My angel, his name is freedom
BYRD:  “Ye sacred muses”
          Agnus Dei from Mass for four voices
J.S. BACH: Singet dem Herr ein neues Lied, BWV 225

Listen to Program 10 (on PRX.org)

Program 11 - Ensemble Intercontemporain

Matthias Pintscher, Music Director

This extraordinary, standard-setting French chamber ensemble is a major force in the music world. A highpoint of our 90th anniversary celebration, the Ensemble’s November 2015 appearance at the Library exhibited a virtuosic command of style, and the tradition of uncompromising artistry established by founder Pierre Boulez. The centerpiece of this hour is a masterwork from the Second Viennese School: Alban Berg’s Chamber Concerto for piano, violin and 13 winds. Opening the hour is an excerpt from a Mozart quintet, played by the St. Lawrence Quartet with violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and a performance of the Richard Strauss Sextet by the Salzburg Hyperion Players.

MOZART: Adagio ma non troppo, excerpt from the String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516      
STRAUSS: Sextet from Capriccio
BERG: Kammerkonzert for piano, violin and 13 winds

Listen to Program 11 (on PRX.org)

David Plylar

Program 12 - In the Reeds, featuring Calefax

With guest host David H. Plylar, concert producer and music specialist, Library of Congress Music Division

Adventuresome and engaging, the Dutch reed quintet Calefax intrigues audiences with its own transcriptions of an interesting range of music, from Renaissance polyphony to an irresistible rendition of a favorite orchestral classic.  To introduce the hour,  an excerpt from the Gran Partita, Mozart’s sublime wind ensemble serenade.

MOZART: Serenade in B-flat major, K. 361 (“Gran Partita”)
SHOSTAKOVICH: excerpts from Preludes and Fugues, op. 87
           No. 7 in A major
           No. 12 in G# minor
NANCARROW: excerpts from Selected Studies for player piano, arr. Raaf Hekkema
           No. 15
           No. 3C
FRANCK:  Prélude, fugue et variation, op. 18, arr. Jelte Althuis
OCKEGHEM: Mort, tu as navré de ton dart,arr. Raaf Hekkema
R. STRAUSS:  Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,  op. 28, arr. Olivier Boekhoorn

Listen to Program 12 (on PRX.org)

Program 13 - Debussy and Dvořák

Jennifer Koh, violin and Ieva Jokubaviciute, piano
Pavel Haas Quartet
     and from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center:

Daniel Hope, violin | Paul Neubauer, viola | David Finckel, cello | Wu Han, piano

Rounding off our 2015-2016 series is a “best of the best” package featuring artists at the top of their games. The admirable violinist Jennifer Koh delivers a breathtaking Debussy sonata performance with pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute.  Artists from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center perform a one-movement piano quartet written by the 16-year-old Gustav Mahler. And the Pavel Haas Quartet demonstrates “the best qualities of the Czech tradition—warmth, sonorousness, individuality, intensity” (Gramophone). In Antonín Dvořák’s op. 96 string quartet, it’s a pleasure to hear these superb, quintessentially Czech artists summon an impression of the American countryside.

DEBUSSY: Sonata for violin and piano
MAHLER: Piano Quartet in A minor
DVOŘÁK: String Quartet in F major, op. 96 (“American”)

Listen to Program 13 (on PRX.org)

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2015 Radio Series

The 2015 Concerts from the Library of Congress radio series continues a distinguished broadcast tradition of nearly nine decades.  Launched with the first concert in the Library’s historic Coolidge Auditorium—October 28, 1925—ours is the oldest classical music broadcast series in America. Thirteen one-hour programs, hosted by Bill McGlaughlin with special guest hosts Chloe Veltman, David Plylar, Nicholas Alexander Brown, Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, and Sidney Wolfe. Read 2015 news release

PROGRAM 1 - FRANZ SCHUBERT: DEATH and the MAIDEN

For Schubert lovers in particular:  Marian Anderson’s majestic voice evokes the melancholy aura of Franz Schubert’s famous lied, introducing the Borromeo Quartet’s powerful performance of his “Death and the Maiden” with its beautifully embroidered variations. The memorable Beaux Arts Trio’s Romantic Notturno rounds out the hour.

SCHUBERT

Quartet in D minor, D. 810 “Death and the Maiden” (Borromeo String Quartet)
Notturno in E- flat major for piano trio, op. 148, D. 897 (Beaux Arts Trio (archival))

PROGRAM 2 - THE ENGLISH CONCERT and THE RED PRIEST
                     HARRY BICKET, conductor

Superb performances of music from Venice’s Red Priest, Antonio Vivaldi, from a very top-drawer period instrument ensemble. You’ll hear a stunning violin concerto performance by early music star Rachel Podger, and a flashback to an earlier century: an intimate John Dowland setting sung by mezzo Alice Coote—whose voice has been compared to “burnished copper”--and lutenist William Carter.

VIVALDI

Trio Sonata in D minor, op. 1 no. 12, RV 63 “La Folia
Concerto for violin, strings and basso continuo in C minor, RV 401 (with Jonathan Manson, cello)

DOWLAND

“In Darkness Let Me Dwell” (Alice Coote, mezzo-soprano; William Carter, lute)

VIVALDI

Concerto for violin, strings and continuo in D major, RV 208 “Il Grosso Mogul” ( Rachel Podger, violin)

At the end of the hour: a Songs of America sampler interview on a 1980 Library performance by British tenor Peter Pears, the longtime partner of Benjamin Britten, with Chloe Veltman and Nick Brown.

PROGRAM 3 - FALLA, RAVEL, DEBUSSY and SCHUBERT

An hour of  chamber favorites bookended by British violinist Daniel Hope, with the centerpiece a work rarely heard on the radio: Franz Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor for piano, four hands.

FALLA

Canciones populares españolas, arr. Pawel Kochanski (Daniel Hope, violin; Simon Crawford-Phillips, piano)

SCHUBERT

Fantasie in F minor, op. 103, for piano, four hands (Genova & Dimitrov, piano duo)

DEBUSSY

Cello Sonata (Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello; Alexandre Tharaud, piano)

RAVEL

“Kaddish,” from Deux mélodies hébraïques, arr. Daniel Hope (Daniel Hope, violin)

At the end of the hour: a Songs of America snapshot of a Library recital by famed Wagnerian heldentenor Set Svanholm, from Chloe Veltman and Anne McLean.

Chloe Veltman

Program 4 - LEGENDARY SINGERS at the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
                     Chloe Veltman, guest host

Arts journalist and broadcaster Chloe Veltman (Editor of Colorado Public Radio’s Arts Bureau, and host and producer of Voicebox) joins Bill McGlaughlin in re-discovering a few of the famous singers who have appeared on the Coolidge stage, from 1940 to the present. Voice aficionados will encounter some performances only aired once in a generation.

Dorothy Maynor, soprano (Arpad Sandor, piano)
Depuis le jour,” from Gustave Charpentier’s opera, Louise“Ride On, Jesus,” trad.; arr. R. Nathaniel Dett

Roland Hayes, tenor (Reginald Boardman, piano)
Xango,” by Heitor Villa-Lobos

Set Svanholm, tenor (Arne Sunnegårdh, piano)
Erlkönig,” by Franz Schubert

Samuel Barber (accompanying himself at the piano)
“O Waly, Waly,” trad.

Leontyne Price (Samuel Barber, piano)
Selections from Hermit Songs, by Samuel Barber

Leonard Warren, baritone
Excerpt from “The Lamentation of Saul,” Norman Dello Joio

Thomas Hampson, baritone (The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center)
Selections from American Songbook, by George Crumb

 

Program 5 - CONCERTO KÖLN—BACH and TELEMANN

Featuring performances from our BachFest marathon: Skip Sempé plays a Bach Sarabande on Wanda Landowska’s splendid Pleyel harpsichord; and Germany’s stunning Concerto Köln, perhaps one of the world’s top period instrument ensembles, performs the Bach C-major Suite for Orchestra and a Telemann concerto  that finishes with a gypsy-style dance—with vigorous stomps from the players—as finale.

J.S. BACH

Sarabande in D, BWV 1012, transcription, Sarabande from the 6th cello suite (Skip Sempé, harpsichord)

SAMMARTINI

Sinfonie in A major

J.S. BACH

Suite for orchestra in C major, BWV 1066

TELEMANN

Concerto in E minor for recorder, flute, strings and basso continuo (Martin Sandhoff, flute; Cordula Brewer, recorder)

David Plylar

Program 6 - PAMELA FRANK AND FRIENDS: BRAHMS and DVOŘÁK
                     David Plylar, guest host

Violinist Pamela Frank convenes a group of good friends for a performance of Johannes’ Brahms’ Sextet in G major, introduced with a treasure from the Library’s huge Brahms archive: his manuscript for a piano four-hands version, sampled by Bill McGlaughlin and guest host David Plylar. The performers are Pamela Frank and Alexander Simionescu, violins; Dimitri Murrath and Nokuthula Ngwenyama, violas; Peter Wiley and Edward Arron, cellos.

BRAHMS

Sextet no. 2 in G major, op. 36

DVOŘÁK

Miniatures, op. 75a, for two violins and viola (Pamela Frank, Alexander Simionescu, Dimitri Murrath)

At the end of the hour: A Songs of America sampler spotlighting a 1940 recital by African American soprano Dorothy Maynor, with Chloe Veltman and Anne McLean.

Program 7 - QUARTET DANCES
                     Sidney Wolfe, guest host 

Memorable string quartet performances in this hour, introduced by Bill and guest host, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, a Library concertgoer for almost half a century. You’ll hear the Cuarteto Casals in Boccherini’s “Fandango” quartet—with castanets; the Takács Quartet’s Bartók collaboration with Hungary’s Muzsikás ensemble and a wistful, lyrical performance of the teenaged Sergei Rachmaninoff’s quartet no. 1.

BOCCHERINI

Quintet in D major, G.448 “Fandango” (Cuarteto Casals with Manuel Barrueco, guitar) 

FALLA

Dance of the Miller, from The Three-Cornered Hat (Cuarteto Casals with Manuel Barrueco, guitar)

RACHMANINOFF

String Quartet no. 1: Romance; Scherzo (Budapest Quartet (archival))

BARTÓK

Romanian Folk Dances, arr. Arthur Willner (Takács Quartet with the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikás)

Nicholas Brown

Program 8 - POULENC and BRITTEN at the LIBRARY
                     Nicholas Alexander Brown, guest host

Commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, Poulenc’s Sonata for flute and piano and Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet no. 1 became well known very quickly and have remained in the forefront of the chamber repertoire. This program offers special vintage moments featuring Britten as performer, along with his lifelong partner, tenor Peter Pears. (Photo credit: Tristan Govignon)

POULENC (Coolidge Foundation commission)

Sonata for flute and piano (Daniel Pailthorpe, flute; Julian Milford, piano)
Members of the London Conchord Ensemble

BRITTEN (Coolidge Foundation commission)

String Quartet no. 1 in D major, op. 25 (Takács Quartet)

TRADITIONAL

"The Ash Grove," arr. Benjamin Britten (Peter Pears, tenor; Benjamin Britten, piano)

Program 9 - FREIBURGER BAROCKORCHESTER

Beautiful recordings from a blockbuster evening that included all six of the Brandenburg concerti, from Germany’s stellar Freiburg Baroque. In this hour you’ll hear three of the six: the G major concerto with three featured groups of soloists, 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos; the fifth Brandenburg, with Sebastien Wienand as harpsichord soloist; and the 4th concerto, with Freiburg co-director  Gottfried von der Goltz as violin soloist, and Isabell Lehmann and Marie Deller playing solo recorders.

J.S. BACH

Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G major, BWV 1048
Brandenburg Concerto no. 5 in D major, BWV 1050
Brandenburg Concerto no. 4 in G major BWV 1049, for solo violin and two recorders

Program 10 - FROM THE INSTRUMENT VAULTS: Gems by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù
                       Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, Musical Instruments Curator, Library of Congress

You’ll hear the sumptuous sounds of our incomparable Cremonese instruments in this showcase for Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù. Miranda Cuckson plays pieces by Fritz Kreisler on his own Guarneri violin, a masterly example of the violinmaker’s art. The Parker Quartet plays our Strads in a Dvořák viola quintet with Kikue Ikeda, a longtime member of the distinguished Tokyo Quartet. From the archives: Debussy on the Strads, from the Budapest Quartet, performing with master harpist Marcel Grandjany.

KREISLER

Selected pieces, including Caprice Viennois and Praeludium and Allegro in the style of Pugnani
(Miranda Cuckson, violin; Blair McMillen, piano)

DVOŘÁK

String Sextet in E-flat major, op. 97 (Parker Quartet with Kikuei Ikeda, viola)

DEBUSSY

Danse sacrée et danse profane (Budapest String Quartet with Marcel Grandjany, harp (archival))

David Plylar

Program 11 - TRANSFIGURED SONGS:
                       LISZT PARAPHRASES and TRANSCRIPTIONS
                       David Plylar, guest host        

A look at Franz  Liszt’s brilliant re-imaginings of songs by Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt himself, and opera arias by Verdi and Wagner.

SCHUBERT/LISZT

Ave Maria” (Valerie Tryon, piano)

BEETHOVEN/LISZT

Adelaide” (Egon Petri, piano)

LISZT

Im Rhein, am schönen Strome,” S. 272 (Matthew Polenzani, tenor; Julius Drake, piano)
Im Rhein, am schönen Strome”, transcribed by the composer (Valerie Tryon, piano)
Im Rhein, am schönen Strome” (Angelika Kirchschlager, Julius Drake)

VERDI/LISZT

Rigoletto de Verdi: paraphrase de concert, S. 434 (Valerie Tryon, piano)

WAGNER/LISZT

Isoldens Liebestod”—Schlusszene aus Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde, S. 447 (Valerie Tryon, piano)

Nicholas Brown

Program 12 - STRAVINSKY AND SCHOENBERG:
                       SHADOWS of the GREAT WAR
                       Nicholas Alexander Brown, guest host

An exhilarating concert from the Library’s Adams mini-festival in spring 2013. Composer John Adams conducts the 24 crack instrumentalists of the International Contemporary Ensemble in two works that foreshadow the tremendous cultural upheavals and societal shifts of the First World War.  (Photo credit: Tristan Govignon)

STRAVINSKY

L’Histoire du soldat

SCHOENBERG

Chamber Symphony no. 1, op. 9

Program 13 - ELIAS STRING QUARTET

Jonathan Biss joins the Elias, one of Britain’s noteworthy young ensembles and winner of the BBC  New Generation Award, for the Dvořák A minor piano quintet. Pieter Wispelwey plays  the Ligeti solo cello sonata written between 1948 and 1953. To end the program, and this season’s radio series: Lament for Mulroy. It’s a haunting encore written by Elias Quartet violinist Donald Grant; like the ghost of a thought you can’t reach, it stays in the mind’s ear. 

DVOŘÁK

Quintet in A minor, op. 81, for piano and strings (Elias String Quartet with Jonathan Biss, piano)

LIGETI

Sonata for cello solo (Pieter Wispelwey, cello)

GRANT

Lament for Mulroy (Elias String Quartet, Donald Grant, composer and solo violin)

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