Week of December 4, 2023 - Chicago’s Own Cedille Records Record labels have their own identities; some are devoted to living composers, others to the spoken word or children’s music. Many solo artists and conductors have exclusive contracts with labels like you'll find Sir Georg Solti on Decca, or Arthur Rubenstein on RCA. This week we are featuring Cedille Records founded by James Ginsburg in 1989. Cedille Records is a nonprofit record label with the mission to present classical music performers and composers in and from Chicago.
Week of December 11, 2023 - Variations In one of his pensées, Pascal says, “That man lives between the abyss of the infinitely large and the abyss of the infinitely small. The voyage of variations leads to the other infinitude, into the infinite diversity of the interior world lying hidden in all things.” Bill leads us on this voyage through a theme and its variations. We start and end the week by listening to Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
Week of December 18, 2023 - Schubertiade I What a scene in Vienna: business owners, intellectuals, and scholars offering their home for a concert! A meal, a place to sleep or a room with a piano - all to support the friend they loved and admired, Franz Schubert. It was a Bohemian life, rich with music and conversation. This week, we are welcomed into those legendary house concerts for an enchanting week of chamber music.
Week of December 25, 2023 - George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) Born the same year as JS Bach and Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti, Handel had a distinct sound that married his German roots with his new country of England. We will have a weeklong look at the life and music of England’s most celebrated German composer. Since the Baroque era, many of his works have been performed every year since their first hearing, which is now over 300 hundred years ago. And a good hour into the Messiah we all stand for the Hallelujah chorus just as George II did at its first performance.
