Fishko Files from WNYC

The composer Arnold Schoenberg, father of the twelve tone system, scandalized the music world in 1913 Vienna -- and became the go-to music teacher for innumerable American composers after he moved to the US in 1934.  How can we understand his music?  WNYC’s Sara Fishko gives it a try in this Fishko Files.  

Angela Hewitt will be in New York next week to give a master class in the performance of music by Bach.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, Bach’s keyboard music has been especially appealing to pianists with a strong point of view.  Here is this Fishko Files…

Film director William Wyler had a soft spot for a good story.  The result, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko in this edition of Fishko Files, was a catalogue of films –many of them great-- that didn’t necessarily look like the work of a single “auteur.” 

Fishko Files on the rise and fall of the innovative wide-screen film format Cinerama, which, as WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, delighted viewers and gave the post-WWII film business a much-needed jolt.

Sid Caesar, the comic genius behind some of the most memorable sketches ever created for TV, died Wednesday in Beverly Hills at age 91. WNYC’s Sara Fishko spoke to Caesar for this episode of Fishko Files in 2000.

It’s just a hundred years since Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp first appeared on the silver screen and created a sensation.  As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us in this Fishko Files, it all started almost by accident -- with a magical costume…  

The musician Larry Adler, born in February 1914, rose to considerable twentieth century stature playing and composing for the mouth organ –otherwise known as: the harmonica. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, he was a unique American character. Here is the next Fishko Files…

One of Mexico's esteemed composers has never lost favor in his own country, but for generations he was unknown everywhere else. Even now, as WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, he's not exactly a household name. (Produced in 2002)

For this Fishko Files episode, WNYC’s Sara Fishko interviewed William Bolcom, the genre-mixing, music-loving, composer-quoting writer of all kinds of musical works.

This month, Ennio Morricone will receive The Recording Academy's Trustees Award. In his honor, this Fishko Files episode inspired by his iconic film scores.

WNYC's Sara Fishko traveled to New Orleans to interview pianist Henry Butler in 2005.  Since then Butler has moved to Brooklyn, and his spectacular piano-playing will be featured this week at the Jazz Standard in Manhattan.   Here's a taste of Butler for this Fishko Files podcast.

WNYC's Sara Fishko considers the long career of iconic conductor Arturo Toscanini in this Fishko Files (from 2007).

Critic Harris Goldsmith has known classical music from both sides –as gifted performer and insightful listener. His unusual musical life is the subject of this Fishko Files.

It's a Barbara Stanwyck moment, with a new book just out and a retrospective of her films beginning tomorrow. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us in this Fishko Files, Stanwyck was part of a generation of women who really knew how to deliver a line.

This fall photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber has been celebrating 25 years since the original release of his popular film “Let’s Get Lost.”  That film, says WNYC’s Sara Fishko, is one of many efforts to capture the “mystique” of horn players –both real and imagined (first aired in 2007).