Week of April 1, 2024 - Hit or Myth The Gods must be crazy! This week, we’ll survey the trials and tribulations of mortals and immortals, brought to life by Berlioz, Gluck, and Handel. Bill muses on works inspired by myths, with emphasis on the many symphonic and operatic works telling the stories of Orpheus (aka Orphee, L’Orfeo, or Black Orpheus) who was the first musician, the mortal to whom the gods gave the gift of music. We will listen to Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo performed by The English Baroque Soloists and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. Bill also takes a close look at works about Troilus and Cressida, Dido and Aeneas, and Venus and Adonis.
Week of April 8, 2024 - Music of Ukraine Bill has been thinking a lot about Ukraine lately, so he created this new week exploring its music and storied history. We will hear works that evoke Ukraine’s folktales, and its landscape by Mykola Kolessa. Then Bill’s friend, pianist Lydia Artymiw, helped him collect more Ukrainian music, and he listened to her stories of her father’s homeland. She’ll share her recording of piano works by Vasyl Barvinsky, plus other solo piano pieces. Bill will end the week with Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 “Babi Yar” and Anthony Hopkins reading the Ukrainian poem by Yevtushenko that inspired its first movement. Join us this week for beautiful Ukrainian music!
Week of April 15, 2024 - Mozart: Bright Lights, Big City In 1781, when Mozart was 25, he got the boot from the archbishop and moved from his hometown of Salzburg to the music capital of Vienna. This cosmopolitan city opened Mozart’s eyes and ears to a creative world that he expresses so beautifully in his music. This week we will hear some of his greatest symphonies, piano concertos, and operas all composed while he was living in Vienna.
Week of April 22, 2024 - Marlboro Music Each summer in Vermont, the sign that greets everyone coming to the Marlboro Music is "Caution: Musicians at Play." Artistic director Mitsuko Uchida explained to Bill that Marlboro, founded in 1951, has a historic link that goes back directly to composers of the Second Viennese School, to Brahms, and all the way to Mozart and Haydn. Exploring Music’s summer visit reminded us of Mozart’s spirit when he dedicated six quartets to Papa Haydn: “Please... receive them kindly and be to them a father, guide, and friend!” Listen for this spirit of entrusting and sharing chamber music with this multi-generational family of Marlboro Music.
Week of April 29, 2024 - Roaring 20s In the 1920s, concert halls rocked with everything from jazz to airplane propellers and radio became a multi-billion-dollar industry. Bill says art and literature flowed like bathtub gin. We’ll start this week in New York with the 1926 Metropolitan Opera premiere of John Alden Carpenter’s ballet Skyscrapers and end the week in the then-troubled city of Berlin with the early works of Kurt Weill.
