Alberto Ginastera

Monday, March 30, 2009

Acclaimed Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera began establishing himself as a creative force before he even finished his music studies. But he waited until he was well into his career to write his first string quartet. Tonight we hear this piece, the dynamic "String Quartet No.1, Op. 20." Also, Derek Bermel's "Dust Dances" and Jonny Greenwood's "Prospectors Arrive" from the soundtrack for the film There Will Be Blood.

Also Featured Tonight:

Bob Mintzer / Quartet No. 1 in Three Movements
Peter Lieberson / Three Selections from "Rilke Songs"
William Bolcom / Third Sonata, "Sonata Stramba"
Olivier Messiaen / Oiseaux Exotiques
Federico Mompou / Suburbis

Music Playlists

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Inspired by Bach

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tonight marks the last night of Bachanalia, a special celebration commemorating the birth of Bach. We wrap up the festival with some music written and inspired by the legendary composer. We’ll hear “Five Refractions of a Prelude by Bach” by guitarist Andrew McKenna Lee, “Fugues on Themes by J.S. Bach” by Clara Schumann, and a legendary recording of Bach’s own “Cello Suite No. 5 in C Minor.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Edward MacDowell / Two Fragments after The Song of Roland
Toyohiko Sato / Pelerinage au Rollant
Horacia Salinas / Fragments of a Dream, part 1
Riuichi Sakamoto / The End of Asia, part 1
Anonymous / Retrove

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Switched on Bach

Saturday, March 28, 2009

When Wendy Carlos released “Switched on Bach,” the now notorious album of Bach compositions for Moog synthesizer, the record received a mixed reception to say the least. It was one of the first classical albums to go platinum, but many purists considered it to be musical blasphemy. Tonight we hear selections from this infamous album as part of Evening Music’s Bachanalia, an ongoing festival celebrating Bach’s birth.

Also Featured Tonight:

Alec Wilder / Suite No. 2 for Tenor Sax and Strings
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat, K. 417
Max Reger / Variations and Fugue on a theme of Bach Op 81
Edvard Grieg / Two Elegiac Melodies: "Spring," Op. 34/2
Arnold Rosner / "A Gentle Musicke," Op. 44

Music Playlists

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Gyorgy Kurtag

Friday, March 27, 2009

Tonight we continue Bachanalia, our special festival celebrating Bach’s birth, with “Bach-Transkriptionen” by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, whose musical style was heavily influenced by Bach. Also, a classic recording of “Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor” featuring violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and Gabriela Montero’s arrangement of Bach-inspired improvisations “Beyond Bach.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Gavin Bryars / Three Elegies for Nine Clarinets
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber / Sonata violino solo representative
Robert Kyr / Violin Concerto No. 2, "On the Nature of Harmony"
Aaron Copland / Violin Sonata
Lou Harrison / Village Music

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Astor Piazzolla

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Astor Piazzolla wasn’t just a tango master. He also revolutionized the genre by incorporating elements of jazz and classical music. Tonight on Evening Music, we hear Piazzolla’s “Introduccion Et Angel.” Also, “Responso (Responsory)” by fellow tango composer Anibal Troilo and “Pop’s Cyle” by Malcolm Forsyth.

Also Featured Tonight:

Nino Rota / Two Waltzes on the Name of BACH
Franz Schubert / Adagio for Piano Trio in E-flat, "Notturno"
Stephen Paulus / The Age of American Passions
Alan Hovhaness / Ode to the Temple of Sound
Johann Sebastian Bach / Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D, BWV 1050

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Voice of the Whale

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Composer George Crumb has taken his musical inspiration from poetry, war, and occasionally, from the sea. Tonight on Evening Music, we hear Crumb’s “Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale).” Also, Billy Strayhorn’s “The Flowers Die of Love,” and “Music in Fifths” by Philip Glass.

Also Featured Tonight:

Michael Torke / Blue Pacifica
Hans Krasa / Chamber Music for Harpsichord and Seven Instruments
Arvo Part / Tribute to Caesar
Johann Sebastian Bach / Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor
Phillip Lasser / Twelve Variations on Chorale by J.S. Bach

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Tania León

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Atonal music may not have a key, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a beat. Tonight on Evening Music, we hear the Carribean-inspired atonal piece “Parajota Delaté” by the Cuban-born Tania León. Also, the lesser known Duke Ellington composition “Uwis,” and Keith Jarrett’s “Personal Mountains.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Johann Sebastian Bach / On the Departure of a Brother
Carolyn Yarnell / The Same Sky
Johann Sebastian Bach / Cantata No. 199, "Mein Herz schwimmt im Blut"
Sylvie Courvoisier / Abaton
John Rutter / Requiem, Op. 66

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Song of the Volga Boatmen

Monday, March 23, 2009

“Song of the Volga Boatmen” was a big band hit in the 1940’s. But it’s actually a sea shanty inspired by Tsarist Russia. Tonight on Evening Music, we hear this classic composition, arranged by American composer Dudley Buck. Also, Ljova’s moody “Crosstown” and “Descarga Elizabeth” by David Demnitz.

Also Featured Tonight:

Carlos Guastavino / Tres cantos populares
Gaetano Donizetti / String Quartet No. 9 in D Minor
David Lang / World to Come
Isaac Albeniz / Recuerdos de viaje
Alberto Ginastera / String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

John the Revelator

Sunday, March 22, 2009

We hear Phil Kline’s “John the Revelator,” a choral mass performed by the early music vocal group Lionheart, which the composer describes as “a window to a deeper world.” Also, Lisa Karrer’s “Kacapi,” a reworking of a love song by 20th-century Indonesian poet Sitor Situmorang, and Eyvind Kang’s “Asa Tru.”

Also Featured Tonight

Jordi Savall / Lachrimae Caravaggio: Statio II
Tison Street / Adagio in E-flat for Oboe and String Quintet
Toru Takemitsu / Toward the Sea ll

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Live from Carnegie Hall

Saturday, March 21, 2009

David Garland and Terrance McKnight return to Carnegie Hall to co-host the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra concert in the next of Orpheus’s The New Brandenburg commissions: Melinda Wagner’s “Little Moonhead.” We will be hearing from the Philadelphia-born composer during intermission, and Terrance will be live backstage to speak with concert soloist, violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. The evening’s music rounds out with Stravinsky, Haydn and the boisterous Astor Piazzola’s Four Seasons.

http://www.orpheusnyc.com/

Adjustable Wrench

Friday, March 20, 2009

We hear Paquito D’Rivera’s “Invitation al Danzon,” a jaunty, Latin-inspired piece played by the trio of Rivera, Yo-Yo Ma and Alon Yavnai. Also, Michael Torke’s pop-tinged orchestral work “Adjustable Wrench,” and the regal “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

Also Featured Tonight:

Darius Milhaud / Le boeuf sur le toit
Eric Ewazen / Down a River of Time
Donald Crockett / to be sung on the water
Robert Kyr / Threefold Vision
Clarice Assad / Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Gann's Boogie Woogie

Thursday, March 19, 2009

We hear a selection from “A Pedrinha Cai,” by Egberto Gismonti, a classically-trained, psychedelic-rock influence composer. Also, Aaron Copland’s grand, dramatic “Statements for Orchestra” and musician and writer Kyle Gann’s avant-garde Disklavier piece “Cosmic Boogie Woogie.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Jacques Ibert / Elizabethan Suite
Randall Thompson / Mass of the Holy Spirit
Esa-Pekka Salonen / Mania (for cello and 14-piece ensemble)
Edward MacDowell / "Woodland Sketches"
Alvin Singleton / A Yellow Rose Petal

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Fancy Free

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

We hear Leonard Bernstein’s “Fancy Free,” an early score the composer wrote for a ballet of the same name. Also, “Drum and Gong” from "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" film score composer Tan Dun and Spiritual’s “Gospel Train.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Milos Raickovich / Parastos
Ottorino Respighi / Piano Sonata in F
Jason Barabba / String Trio
Steve Reich / Different Trains
John Corigliano / "Elegy"

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Stairway to Paradise

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

We hear George Gershwin’s “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” which jazz critic Carl Van Vechten called “the most perfect piece of jazz yet written” when it was first performed in 1922. Also, Erik Satie’s cerebral “Vexations” and David Byrne’s “High Life for Nine Instruments."

Also Featured Tonight:

John McLaughlin / Girls with Red Shoes
Louis Andriessen / Workers Union
Randall Thompson / The Eternal Dove
Carlos Chavez / Sextet for Piano and Strings
Frederic Rzewski / Mayn Yingele

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Crepuscule With Nellie

Monday, March 16, 2009

We hear Thelonious Monk's “Crepuscule With Nellie,” a haunting solo piano melody the jazz great wrote for his ill wife. Also, Arvo Pärt’s highly emotional, biblically-inspired “Wallfahrtslied” (Pilgrim’s Song) and Ed Chang’s version of John Cage’s groundbreaking composition “Aria.”

Also Featured Tonight:

Terry Riley / The Philosopher's Hand
Arthur Foote / Three pieces for Piano and Cello
Johannes Brahms / Four Serious Songs
Marga Richter / Blackberry Vines and Winter Fruit
Leos Janacek / Sinfonietta

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Colin McPhee

Sunday, March 15, 2009

One of the first musicians to engage in ethnomusicological studies, Canadian composer and musicologist Colin McPhee (1900-1964) incorporated elements of world music into his art long before it was fashionable. We mark the anniversary of his birth with several works throughout the evening. Also, the Bagatelles of Ukranian contemporary composer Valentin Silvestrov (as performed on the piano by Silvestrov himself), plus offerings by Maurice Ravel, John Luther Adams, and Eric Whiteacre.

Irish Laments and Dances

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Foreshadowing St. Patrick's Day, we hear Irish-themed excerpts from Arnold Black's "Laments and Dances" for guitar duo. Other string-based duets on the plate tonight include Rami Vamos & Dandall Avers's "Three Songs for Twelve Strings," and John McLaughlin's "Duos for Guitar and Piano." Also, music by the founder of Armenian classical music, Gomidas Vardapet, and NYC-based tour king (as well as avocational composer) Stephen Perillo's cleverly tooled orchestral work, "Hangoverture."

Ask Your Mama Commissions

Friday, March 13, 2009

In conjunction with the Langston Hughes Ask Your Mama project at Carnegie Hall, WNYC has commissioned 4 composers of different backgrounds to create sound scores to Hughes's poetry. We sample a few of those tonight, and hear about the creation of each work from the composers themselves: Matana Roberts, DJ Rupture, and Brandon Ross.

Also Featured Tonight:

Johann Sebastian Bach / Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F
Don Gillis / Rhapsody for Trumpet and Orchestra
Howard Hanson / Symphony No. 2, Op. 30, Romantic
Francois Couperin / Dix-huitieme ordre
Frederic Rzewski / Down by the Riverside

The Lady of Monte Carlo

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Mezzo Susan Graham tells the sad story of a woman who drowns herself after losing everything to the casino, in Francis Poulenc's "The Lady of Monte Carlo." Marc-André Hamelin essays Heitor Villa-Lobos's charming suite for piano, "A prole do bebe" ("The Baby's Family"), and we hear offerings from father/daughter musicians Sergio and Clarice Assad.

Also Featured Tonight:

Igor Stravinsky / Four Etudes, Op. 7
Camille Saint-Saens / Fantasy for Violin and Harp in A, Op.124
Cecil Effinger / Little Symphony No.1 op.31 (1945)
Lowell Liebermann / Nocturne Nos. 5, 6, and 7
Frederick Delius / "In a Summer Garden"
Mzilikazi Khumalo / Five African Songs

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Eros Piano

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

We hear John Adams' "Eros Piano," which the composer describes as "a quiet, dreamy soliloquy for piano, played against a soft, lush fabric of orchestral screens and clusters." Also, George Antheil's jazz-infused "Little Shimmy" for piano, and Finnish music courtesy of the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet.

Also Featured Tonight:

Don Byron / You can fly
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Clarinet Quintet, K. 581: Allegro
Vincent d'Indy / Choral varie
Richard Strauss / Di Rigori Armato
Radames Gnattali / Four Nocturnes
Paul Hindemith / The Four Temperaments
Sergei Rachmaninoff / "The Bells," Op. 35

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Preludes in African Rhythm

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Ghanaian American pianist William Chapman Nyaho performs Isak Roux's part minimalist, part free-form "Preludes in African Rhythm." Also, Russian folk music from the Moscow Male Voice Choir; chamber music from the two Monks (Thelonious and Meredith), and orchestral romps through Panama, via composers William Grant Still and Kurt Weill.

Also Featured Tonight:

Jeno Hubay / Zephyr
Aldemaro Romero / Fuga con Pajarillo from Suite for String no. 1
Stephen Paulus / The Five Senses - Windows of the Mind
Ottorino Respighi / Church Windows (Vetrate di Chiesa)
Jacob Druckman / Windows for Orchestra (1972)
Antonin Dvorak / Cello Concerto in B Minor, Op. 104

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Ask Your Mama!

Monday, March 09, 2009

As Carnegie Hall prepares to launch composer Laura Karpman and soprano Jessye Norman's collaborative take on Langston Hughes's epic poem, "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz," WNYC Music and Culture take an in depth look at Hughes's work through both musical and interactive elements.

Tonight's music includes Lena Horne in "Hesitation Blues," plus Schubert Lieder from Jessye Norman, and more. Also, composer Laura Karpman joins Terrance McKnight to talk about the upcoming event at Carnegie Hall.

Ask Your Mama! at Carnegie Hall
More about WNYC's Langston Hughes project at the Evening Music Blog

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Gamelan Beatles

Sunday, March 08, 2009

We hear from New York City-based gamelan ensemble Gamelan Son of Lion, in John Morton's "She (really) Had To Go," which riffs on Lennon and McCartney's "Yesterday." Also, a more conventional version of that particular Beatles hit from guitarist Goran Sollscher, and Bach transcriptions for piano duo by Hungarian composer György Kurtág.

Also Featured Tonight:

Hildegard von Bingen / Instrumental
Anonymous / Credo
Arvo Part / Cecilia, vergine romana
Miguel Fransconi / Telling Time
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478

Leonard Cohen Live from the Beacon Theatre

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Airs Saturday, March 7 at 8PM on 93.9FM
On February 19th, legendary singer, poet, and songwriter Leonard Cohen performed in front of a U.S. audience for the first time in 15 years. WNYC and NPR Music present Cohen's triumphant return, recorded live at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan and hosted by All Songs Considered's Bob Boilen.

"Leonard Cohen Live from the Beacon Theatre" is presented in conjunction with NPR Music and MSG Entertainment.

Listen to the concert at NPR Music
http://www.leonardcohen.com/

How About Now

Friday, March 06, 2009

We hear Nico Muhly's chamber work for the Now Ensemble, "How About Now" — which begins tentatively but soon morphs into a dancelike melange that bears a salutatory resemblance to the music of Steve Reich. Also, the Borodin String Quartet essay Schubert's Quartettsatz, and master of the bandoneón Dino Saluzzi teams up with the Rosamunde Quartet for his own "Cruz del Sur."

Also Featured Tonight:

Heitor Villa-Lobos / Guitar Concerto
Paul Lansky / Semi-Suite
David Balakrishnan / Mara's Garden of False Delights
Erik Lindgren / Baroque-A-Go-Go
Virgil Thomson / Northeastern Suite

Hiroshima Maiden

Thursday, March 05, 2009

We sample post-minimalist composer/cellist Robert Een's score to a puppet theatre piece about the horrors of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima Maiden. Also, a track from guitarist/composer Andrew McKenna Lee's "Scordatura Suite," and contrasting offerings from pianists Ian Brown and William Chapman Nyaho.

Also Featured Tonight:

Alan Hovhaness / Sonata, Op. 406
Astor Piazzolla / Verano porteno (Summer in Buenos Aires)
David Amram / Triple Concerto: "Blues"
Takashi Yoshimatsu / Guitar Concerto, "Pegasus Effect"
Carl Nielsen / Woodwind Quintet, Op.43

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

"Blind Tom" Wiggins

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Born a blind slave in 1849, Thomas Wiggins (a.k.a. "Blind Tom" Wiggins) gained fame throughout the Civil War era as an autistic savant, performing for luminaries such as James Buchanan and Mark Twain. In 2000, pianist John Davis recorded several of Wiggins' own compositions, which we sample tonight. Also, we hear Francis Poulenc's "Gloria" — sort of a riff (albeit sacred) on Orff's "Carmina Burana" — and take a dip into serialist waters with music by Arnold Schoenberg and his students Anton Webern and Alban Berg.

Also Featured Tonight:

Bela Bartok / Improvisation on Hungarian Peasant Songs
George Antheil / A Jazz Symphony
Mark Dancigers / Cloudbank
Sir Edward Elgar / "Severn Suite," Op. 87a
Charles Ives / Violin Sonata No. 3

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

One Year Later

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Weekday Evening Music Host Terrance McKnight celebrates his one year anniversary with WNYC tonight. We hear some of his favorite music of late, including some Bach remixes by Gabriella Montero, Jacques Loussier and Clara Rockmore. Also, modern works from John Adams, Nico Muhly, and Osvaldo Golijov.

Also Featured Tonight:

Traditional / Give Me That Old Time Religion
Steven Mackey / "Eating Greens": part one, 'religion, food, art'
Aaron Copland / Clarinet Sonata
Duke Ellington / Suite from "The River"
Pamela Z / Ethel Dreams of Temporal Disturbances
Samuel Barber / Canzonetta for Oboe and Orchestra

Video: Terrance McKnight on the Leonard Lopate Show (March 3, 2008)
Terrance McKnight shares his CD picks on Soundcheck (February 27, 2008)

Share your comments on the Evening Music Blog

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Persistence of Motion

Monday, March 02, 2009

We hear Peter Askim's orchestral work "Moving, Still," which explores the nature of stillness though the ever-moving medium of music. Also, piano works by Franz Liszt and Isaac Albeniz, plus some quirky and exotic offerings from multi-media composers Robert Een and Meredith Monk.

Also Featured Tonight:

William Grant Still / The Breath of a Rose
Wayne Peterson / Sextet (1982)
Robert Schumann / Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 63
Paul Moravec / Cool Fire
Henry Cowell / Sonata for Violin and Piano
Aaron Jay Kernis / "Still Movement with Hymn"

Music Playlists

View WNYC's music playlists dating back to 2001 (full playlists are generally posted the day after broadcast). For playlist inquiries, please contact Listener Services via email or at 646-829-4000.

Remembering Lorraine

Sunday, March 01, 2009

We offer a tribute to the late mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who was born on this date in 1954; selections include works by Bach, Joaquin Rodrigo, Brahms, Mozart, and Peter Lieberson. Also, celebrating the birth of another musical icon, Frederic Chopin, plus music from Peter Schickele (aka "P.D.Q. Bach") and Terry Riley.