wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Beethoven himself was pleased with Opus 22 work, writing his publisher that “This sonata is really top notch . . .”. Certainly the performance by pianist Maurizio Pollini is top notch, and we hope you’ll like it! You can hear Pollini at Carnegie Hall on October 17th, playing Chopin and Debussy. And in our second hour you can hear him right here on WNYC as we bring you Brahms’s gigantic, four-movement Second Piano Concerto, Claudio Abbado at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic.

Sieur de Sainte-Colombe, of whom almost the only fact known is that he invented the 7th string for the bass viol, composed a number of wonderful works for two 7-string viols; you can hear his “La Rougeville” played on authentic instruments by Jordi Savall and Wieland Kuijken during our third hour.

Do you remember Moondog? He used to hang out in full Viking regalia on mid-Manhattan streets, playing and singing his own songs, living hand-to-mouth, and leaving us with enchanted memories. His real name was Louis Hardin, and we bring you three of his works as performed by the Kronos Quartet. Visit his website here. Canadian composer Colin McPhee became enamored of the gamelan and spent five years in Bali during the 1930s. His “Suite in Six Movements” consists of transcriptions of five Balinese pieces, which you can hear performed by the New Music Concerts group under Robert Aitkin.