My Classical Podcast: Recent Episodes
WQXR
WQXR's Jeff Spurgeon hosts this unique classical music podcast which introduces a featured classical recording in each episode.
Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38 "Spring"
Robert Schumann
Philharmonia Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, Conductor
Available on Arkivmusic.com
When it’s winter, we long for spring. So it makes sense that great music about spring would be written in winter, when we need it most. Maybe spring fever was part of the reason Robert Schumann was able to sketch out his Symphony No.1, the “Spring” Symphony, over just four days in January of 1841. And he did all the orchestration in a three-week space that February. Something we know inspired Schumann was a poem by German writer Adolph Böttger. How inspiring was this poem? Here are two lines from the last stanza of Böttger’s poem: “O wende, wende deinen Lauf/Im Thale blüht der Frühling auf!" (“O, turn, O turn and change your course/In the valley, Spring blooms forth.") But listen to how those German words and the opening notes of Schumann’s symphony go together. Schumann scored those words, didn’t he? Schumann gave spring-themed titles to each of the four movements in this symphony: “The Beginning of Spring,” “Evening,” “Merry Playmates” and “Spring in Full Bloom.” He took the titles out before the symphony was published, but the work remains Schumann’s “Spring” Symphony. Here is the first movement, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
'Frühlingslied' ('Spring Song')
Felix Mendelssohn
Daniel Adni, piano
Available on Arkivmusic.com
Among all the great works written by Felix Mendelssohn are five dozen piano pieces with sort of a weird title: Songs Without Words. Now, is that some kind of game of fill in the blank? If they’re without words, why not put words to them? Well, it turns out that Mendelssohn answered that question.
In a letter, Mendelssohn said that some people complain that music is unclear to them; they don’t understand its meaning, and words would make the meaning clearer. But Mendelssohn said this: “What the music I love expresses to me, is not too indefinite to put into words, but too definite.” (Pretty deep!) Something to think about, though – a meaning too definite to put into words.
Now, the most famous of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words, does have, at least, a title: "Frühlingslied" ("Spring Song"). And you know this song, too. You’ve heard it a million times in cartoons and movies, but it’s almost always used to make fun of something. The tune has become a joke, a cliché, and I think that’s unfair. I think this "Spring Song" deserves a little reprieve. So here’s the whole thing. And as you listen, put aside whatever silly images come into your head, and just let the song be itself. And maybe the definite, wordless meaning will be as clear to you as it was to its composer. This performance is by pianist Daniel Adni.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Frederick Delius
Halle Orchestra; Sir John Barbirolli, conductor
Available on Arkivmusic.com
We all look for signs of spring. Some, such as daffodils and crocuses in bloom, are welcome. Others – the watery, itchy eyes from all that pollen, and the sound of your car hitting all those potholes – not so much. One of the good sounds of spring is birdsong. The song of the cuckoo is a particularly significant spring totem. Has been for centuries. There are all kinds of legends about hearing the first cuckoo of the year. Depending on where you are or what you’re doing, the first cuckoo’s song is supposed to be able to tell your fortune, including how many years you have left to live.
We don’t know why the cuckoo has all that power. Maybe it’s because it’s a little bit mysterious. Cuckoos are easy to hear, but not very easy to spot. Frederick Delius accorded the cuckoo a special honor by writing a symphonic poem about it. Delius was born in England to German immigrant parents. He wrote this piece when he was living in France, and based some of the music on a folk song from Norway that Grieg had arranged. German roots, French residence, Norwegian tune – but when Delius adds them up, they turn into something that sounds very English. Listen for the cuckoo in this piece. You won’t even hear him coming, but when he arrives, it’ll be a nice surprise, like any other welcome sign of spring. John Barbirolli conducts the Halle Orchestra.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
'Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling' (Longing for Springtime)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, vocalist
Walter Gieseking, piano
Available on Arkivmusic.com
When we’re tired of winter, we long for spring, and even more so on days when it says spring on the calendar, but still feels like winter outdoors. Well, here’s a Mozart song for those days when it’s still not spring yet. It’s even called “Longing for Springtime.”
Mozart listed this little piece in the notebook of his compositions dated January 14, 1791. It was one of three tunes he cataloged on that winter day – all of them written for children. Now, the music is by Mozart, but not the words. They were written by a German poet, Christian Overbeck, and were published ten years before Mozart finished the song. The first line of the poem is, “Come, dear May, and make the trees green again!” The second verse admits that winter has its charms: snowy walks, sleigh rides, card games in the house. (A very mature point of view for a children’s song, I think.)
But the third verse pleads again for the return of mild weather and flowers and birds. Mozart wrote a charmer of a tune for it, so good he changed it up a little bit and used it as the theme of the last movement of his Piano Concerto No. 27. Here’s the song version now, sung by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, with Walter Gieseking playing the piano.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Four Seasons: La primavera (Spring), Op. 8/1
Antonio Vivaldi
Chiara Banchini, violin
Taverner Players
Andrew Parrott, conductor
Available on Arkivmusic.com
Spring is here! We wonder how long human beings have been saying that. Long before we had words for Spring, or knew we were human beings, probably. The realization is a primal joy. Some of the most famous classical music for spring is by Vivaldi, from his set of four concertos, La Quattro Stagione – The Four Seasons. The first of them is Spring, la primavera. That’s a wonderful Italian word. Prima vera: “first green.” You need at least six musicians to play the piece according to Vivaldi’s score: a solo violin, a string quartet and a keyboard – organ or harpsichord. The Four Seasons concertos each have three movements, and are what is sometimes called program music – there’s a story being told, or a picture being painted. The pictures aren’t painted in just music, either.
Each of the Four Seasons concertos comes with a little sonnet. Nobody knows who wrote the sonnets; it might have been Vivaldi. Here's the Spring sonnet for the first movement: “Spring is here. The birds celebrate her return with festive song, and murmuring streams are softly caressed by zephyrs. Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven, then they die away to silence, and the birds resume their charming songs.”
The second movement paints this picture: “On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.” And the third movement: “Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of Spring.”
This performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: La primavera (Spring), Op. 8/1 features the violinist Chiara Banchini and the Taverner Players conducted by Andrew Parrott.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Clarinet Quintet in A, K. 581: II. Larghetto
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Anthony McGill, clarinet
Pacifica Quartet
Recorded in a WQXR Cafe Concert
Mozart’s slow movements are not his only trick. He can be just plain joyful, terribly frightening, and anything in between. He’s no one-trick pony. But the slow movements really are unique. Books have been written about this special Mozart sound. Why does it touch us so? There are lots of theories, and because music is another language, none quite captures the full truth. But two ideas really resonate with me.
One is the idea that Mozart’s slow movements aren’t only gorgeous; they’re also painful. The music is wrenchingly beautiful; we’re torn up by it. Is this Mozart making beauty in spite of his struggles? If so, it’s not forced cheerfulness; it’s deeply sincere. Mozart soothes us, and at the same, admits that life ain’t easy.
The other idea is that these slow movements communicate the idea of reconciliation and even forgiveness. Mozart’s slow movements have soaring melodies, but often a restless undercurrent. It’s like he’s struggling to resolve vexing problems, but with goodwill. The optimism that runs through these works feels, to me, like a choice to reconcile and to forgive. If you’ve ever forgiven somebody, well, you know it’s a choice, and a struggle, and a great gift. And if you’ve ever been forgiven – well, same thing. I think we all know this, but Mozart says it in music, and it’s easier to hear the message that way.
This episode features the slow movement from Mozart’s clarinet quintet, recorded in the WQXR Cafe by Anthony McGill and the Pacifica Quartet.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Cosi fan tutte K. 588: 'Soave sia il vento'
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano; Christa Ludwig, mezzo; Walter Berry, baritone
Philharmonia Orchestra
Karl Bohm, conductor
Available on Arkivmusic.com
Ask opera fans to recommend their favorite slow moments in his stage works, and you might get "Dove sono" from The Marriage of Figaro or "Dies bildnis" from The Magic Flute. Good choices, but sooner or later, and probably sooner, those opera fans are going to bring up "Soave sia il vento," from Cosi fan tutte.
The opera is mostly very polite on its surface, although the theme is anything but: Two men disguising themselves and trying to seduce each others' fiancées to win a bet and prove that "cosi fan tutte" – that all women are like that, meaning fickle and unfaithful. Before they disguise themselves, though, the men pretend to sail off to war. And their fiancées send them off, singing, "Soave sia il vento," – "May the seas be calm and the winds gentle." The sincerity of those wishes is made clear in Mozart’s music. You can practically feel the rolling sea and those gentle winds as the music begins. Here are Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Christa Ludwig.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Symphony No. 38 in D, K. 504, "Prague": II. Andante
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
English Chamber Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim, conductor
Available on ArkivMusic
Mozart’s life was filled with struggle – maybe not the kind of titanic struggle we think of with Beethoven, a musician cursed by deafness. But Mozart had struggles – with his father, who was supportive, but also very demanding and controlling; his boss in Salzburg, the Archbishop, who wanted to keep Mozart more or less in his control. Mozart’s mother died when the two were traveling together in Paris. And later he struggled to make a living as a freelance composer and performer in Vienna.
In his letters, Mozart expresses his anger and bitterness about his struggles. But so much of his music is so positive. Even when he was unhappy, Mozart seemed to be able to retreat within himself and create music that either escapes those struggles or just ignores them. Maybe the music helps us surmount our struggles, too.
Princeton music professor Scott Burnham, author of the book Mozart’s Grace, says that in Mozart that we should listen for that daylight around the corner. You can hear this – the falling darkness and the rising light – in this slow movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, the "Prague" Symphony.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467: II. Andante
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piotr Anderszewski, piano
Sinfonia Varsovia
Piotr Anderszewski, conductor
Available on ArkivMusic
One of the most famous middle movements in all of Mozart’s music is from the Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467. The melody is so basic, so simple, so beautiful, with that little twist that’s like…the thorn of the rose? The bitter that helps you taste the sweet? Human joy that’s never quite perfect? But then it leads us back to a place of contentment and rest.
Underneath that floating melody, the motion never stops. It’s restless down there. Mozart expert C.M. Girdlestone pointed out this background, calling it “perpetual instability” and “morbid disquiet.” Yet, soaring over this unstable foundation, Mozart lifts us into flight with this gorgeous melody. And these contrasting ideas join into something Mozart biographer Maynard Solomon describes as “unrelieved, time-stopping beauty.”
You’ll sometimes see this movement listed with the nickname, “Elvira Madigan,” because it was used a lot in a 1967 Swedish movie of that name, but it has nothing to do with the piece itself.
This is one of those Mozart moments that truly deserves the description “sublime.” Listen to pianist Piotr Anderszewski, conducting Sinfonia Varsovia from the keyboard.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, K. 271 "Jeunehomme": II. Andantino
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Alexandre Tharaud, piano
Les Violons du Roy
Bernard Labadie, conductor Available on ArkivMusic
This week on Your Classical Podcast from WQXR, we’re listening to Mozart – specifically, to middle movements of Mozart works. Whether it’s a piano sonata or a symphony or anything in between, something amazing happens in the slow movements of Mozart compositions. What happens is beyond spoken language, although the words “beauty,” “grace,” and even “sublime” come up a lot. The language of music is much richer. But even though words ultimately fail us, it’s worth trying to talk about these middle movements a little bit, because they are so special.
So, what’s the big deal about them? Author Maynard Solomon, in his biography of Mozart, says Mozart’s slow movements cover an enormous range of inner experience. That may be the essence of it. There’s so much of our interior emotional lives in these movements – delicacy, wrenchingly deep feeling, and even contradiction. So much of our humanity in these middle movements.
The first one we have for you is from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, nicknamed the "Jeunehomme" – “young man” in French – but the concerto was written for a young woman pianist, the daughter of one of Mozart’s friends, whose name was Victoire Jenamy, and there’s been confusion over the name through the years.
Unlike most of Mozart’s middle movements, this one is in a minor key, which makes the melody especially poignant. Conductor Bernard Labadie says it’s like a concert aria for a soprano. He told that to Alexandre Tharaud, and that’s why the pianist began playing it. Hear the two of them, with Les Violons du Roy, in the middle movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9.
Once in Royal David’s City by Henry John Gauntlett
Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
directed by David Willcocks
Available on ArkivMusic
It’s one of the most famous annual events of the holiday season, but it started as a way to keep men out of taverns on Christmas Eve. The year: 1880. The place: Cornwall, England. A bishop there came up an idea for a special late-evening church service on December 24, to keep men from just going out to drink that night.
Twenty-eight years later, the sequence of music and scripture readings in that service was adopted by the dean of King’s College, Cambridge, for use in the chapel there, and thus was born the famous Christmas Eve service known as the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. For nearly a century, that service has begun with single boy chorister singing the carol, “Once in Royal David’s City,” and since 1928, it’s been broadcast on the radio. This recording features the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, directed by David Willcocks.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is provided courtesy of Warner Classics/Erato
O Magnum Mysterium (O Wondrous Mystery)
Arr. by Morten Lauridsen
Choir of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Conducted by Kent Tritle
The nativity scene is one of the oldest and richest images of Christmas: Mary and Joseph with the newborn baby Jesus, whose maternity ward was a stable, because all the hotels in Bethlehem had their “no vacancy” signs out. And of course there are animals in that stable – a very unusual royal court for a very unusual king.
That is the image that has been contemplated literally for centuries in the monastic chant, O Magnum Mysterium – "O great mystery and wonderful sacrament" – that animals should see the newborn Lord lying in a manger. The words have been set by many choral composers, but one of the newest settings, from the early 1990s, is by composer Morten Lauridsen. The mystery and wonder of this nativity picture appear in the first chord the chorus sings, and the music has that particular quality of making time seem to stop. It’s terrific for a moment of contemplation, and it’s performed here by the Choir of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, conducted by Kent Tritle.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording was made by WQXR for a Live Broadcast
Sleigh Ride by Leonard Slatkin
BBC Concert Orchestra
Conducted by Leroy Anderson
Available at Arkivmusic.com
Composer Leroy Anderson is best-known for the light orchestral pieces he wrote for Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. The most famous of those works is Sleigh Ride. Anderson started writing it in 1946, not in the winter, but during a summer heat wave. Maybe thinking about winter weather helped him cool off. He finished it when he and his wife were living in the deep New England woods of Brooklyn – in an apartment on the south side of Prospect Park.
We hear Sleigh Ride mostly at Christmas time, but it’s not about Christmas. It’s about…just…winter. There’s no mention of Christmas in the lyrics that Mitchell Parish added later, either. In 2008, to mark Leroy Anderson’s centenary, Leonard Slatkin and the BBC Concert Orchestra recorded all of Anderson’s music. From that set, here is Sleigh Ride.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is courtesy of Naxos of America
Chorus from Handel's Messiah
Le Concert d’Astree
Conducted by Emmanuelle Haim
Available at Arkivmusic.com
We hear Handel’s oratorio Messiah at this time of year more than any other, but it was not composed for Christmas, or for any particular time of year. Handel wrote it in 1741 in just a little over three weeks’ time, which sounds something like a Christmas miracle – except that it was late summer, and he wrote lots of his other oratorios and his operas at similar speed. It was just how he worked.
Messiah was premiered at a benefit concert in Dublin in April 1742. The first performance was a success, both artistically and as a charity effort: Two hospitals received aid, and 142 people were released from debtor’s prison. Think about that: Handel’s Messiah got people out of jail. Here are conductor Emmanuelle Haim and Le Concert d’Astree with a chorus from the Christmas section of Messiah, "For unto us a child is born."
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is courtesy of of Warner Classics/Erato
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'Sussex Mummers’ Carol'
Jeffrey Biegel, piano
arranged by Percy Grainger
Available at Arkivmusic.com
Christmas traditions come and go. One that is nearly gone is that of Christmas Mumming. Mummers were groups of ordinary people, disguised in costume, who would perform a simple play, often involving a character who dies and is brought back to life – a metaphor for winter turning into spring. The play might be performed in someone’s home, concluding with a blessing on the house and the occupants, often in the form of a song or a carol, and with a request for food or money. Mummers' plays were performed a great deal in England in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the custom largely died out after World War One.
One of the carols frequently sung by Christmas mummers in Sussex, in southeast England, was written down around the turn of the 20th century by an important folksong collector named Lucy Broadwood. From there, the melody came into Percy Grainger’s hands, and he made a couple of settings of it, including this very beautiful one for piano solo, full of rich harmonies and some challenges for the pianist – tricky reaches and a melody that sometimes lies within those big chords. Here is the "Sussex Mummers’ Carol," played by Jeffrey Biegel.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is courtesy of Steinway & Sons
Beethoven’s variations on the chorus, “See, the Conqu’ring Hero Comes,” from Handel's Judas Maccabeus
Eaken Piano Trio
Available at Arkivmusic.com
Here’s a piece of classical music that’s become associated with Chanukah for both obvious and completely unintentional reasons. The music is from Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabeus, which, like Chanukah, tells the story of the victorious uprising of the Jewish people against the Greek king Antiochus, who had forbidden Jewish religious observances, mandated the worship of Greek gods, and defiled the Temple. Judas Maccabeus led the band of Jewish fighters that defeated Antiochus.
After the victory, the Temple was cleansed, but there was only enough oil to keep the Temple’s ritual lamp lit for one day. However, the oil for lasted eight days, and that is the miracle celebrated as the Festival of Lights. So, the subject matter of Handel’s oratorio is the obvious reason for its Chanukah association. But if you’re now expecting a big reveal about a Handel-Jewish connection, well ... sorry, but there isn’t one. See, Handel didn’t write the oratorio for any religious purpose at all. He wrote it to celebrate an English military victory. The best-known musical moment associated with Judas Maccabeus is the chorus, “See the Conqu’ring Hero Comes,” and that moment is probably even better-known in a non-Handel form. Beethoven liked that chorus so much that he wrote variations on it. Here’s that set of variations now, played by the Eaken Piano Trio.
Episodes of My Classical Podcast are available for download through the WQXR App. Download it for IOS and Android Devices.
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- This recording is courtesy of Naxos of America
We are pleased to be expanding what was 'My Daily Bach' into the new 'My Classical Podcast'. For this episode we feature “Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul” Bach’s chorale prelude, BWV 654, played by Chelsea Chen at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New York City on November 22nd, 2014, as part of WQXR’s all-day Bach Organ Marathon. This piece is a slow and beautiful chorale prelude – one of a set of 17 or 18 works that Bach wrote and presumably performed during the nine years he was court organist in Weimar. Almost 25 years later, Bach returned to these works and put them into a single collection. The chorale – the hymn tune that everything is built around – is Schmuche dich, o meine Seele – Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul – and the melody is highly decorated, in other words, the soul, adorned.