For Your Listening Pleasure

“Felix Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte” Mendelssohn’s vision of the Lieder ohne Worte clearly isn’t one of music written in anticipation of somebody adding words to them – they are, as they stand – complete as they are, as the music conveys the entire atmosphere, or emotion of the moment. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast182

"HB Francis Poulenc [*1899]" Music was not the Poulenc family business - pharmaceuticals was - but the well-off Poulenc explored music as a hobby at first and (later uder the tutilage of Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes) as an all-consuming passion. Very early on, Poulenc hooked up with a group of up-and-coming composers that author Jean Cocteau would champion under "Les Six" (a kind of thinly-veiled homage to the Russian Mighty Handful). Though their music wasn't strictly nationalistic, it was distinctive and indicative of their shared carefree lifestyle. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast133

"Schumann & Schumann" Sometimes, it’s hard to say who married “up”, the bride or the groom. According to piano teacher Friederich Wieck, it would be safe to assume he thought his pupil Robert Schumann married “up” when he wed his daughter Clara in 1840. Three years earlier, he had refused. ridiculing his daughter's wish to "throw herself away on a penniless composer." This montage features piano works by the husband and wife duo of Robert and Clara Schumann. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast123

"Concerto Solo" This podcast takes a pleasant departure from the classical setting of the “solo concerto” and looks at a pair of – shall I say – mammoth pieces for solo keyboard that have earned the subtitle “concerto for solo piano”, a pair of concerti for piano without orchestra by Alkan and Schumann. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast189

"You Call That a Symphony?" Haydn (along with Mozart and countless other composers) have come to symbolize the symphonic form – a four-movement work following a formula: sonata / slow movement / dense / finale. However, the term needs not be limited to mean those kinds of works.The works featured here are all symphonies, at least by name… Works by Mozart, Widor and Lalo. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast103

"Schubert: Symphonies nos. 5 & 8" Schubert would be especially amazed to learn that he has come to be regarded as a great symphonist. Of all the genres in which he excelled, these fared the worst during his life. His first two were written for his school orchestra and the next four for an amateur group he was able to assemble, all intended to be heard once and then forever forgotten. Written in his teens, they gleam with dewy innocence, reminiscent of Mozart's juvenilia, with only the barest hint of an incursion of strife. Among his most enduring from that period we can single out the Fifth, a buoyant package of joy. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/01SymphonieNo.5EnSiBemolMaje [First time on our podcasting channel]

We launch 2020 with an homage to Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo., Read our commentary on January 3rd @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast330-Playlist

"Verdi: Missa da Requiem" It is true that Verdi is best known for his operas, but if you look at his entire catalog of compositions, there are some non-operatic gems: the string quartet in E Minor, several songs and choral works only to name those. Verdi’s Requiem is the composer’s only large-scale work not written for the stage, and it marked a transitory point in Verdi’s life—from the heyday of one wildly successful opera after another into the relatively quiet, twilight years of his older age. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast151

"New Year in Vienna" The annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert from 1987, with Herbert Von Karajan conducting an all-Strauss program. Host Walter Cronkite provides commentary and takes us on tours of the Palace at Schonbrunn and the world-famous Riding School, the home of the Lippizaner stallions. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/NewYearsConcert1987ViennaPhilharmonic_201609 [First time on our podcasting channel]

"J. Strauss II: Die Fledermaus" Die Fledermaus was Strauss’s third operetta for Vienna’s Theatre an der Wien. The piece was based on a popular French vaudeville comedy, its action tidied up for the supposedly more-elevated tastes of Viennese audiences. At its premiere, critics still found it scandalous, in part because its story of a practical joke spinning out of control seemed ill-suited for performance on what happened to be Easter Sunday. Audiences, however, immediately loved it. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/03DieFledermausAct2 [First time on our podcasting channel]

[Quarterly Tuesday Podcast] Our final montage for 2019, just in time for the New Year, features the Waltz, including some waltz collections and a cover to cover vintage Waltz album. Read our commentary on December 31st @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast329-Playlist

"Messiaen: Turangalîla-symphonie" Turangalîla is one of the most epic symphonic works of the 20th century. An example of “world music” long before that term had currency, it combines the Tristan myth, Eastern mysticism, Hindu and Greek rhythms, Indian scales, African dance, Indonesian drumming, and Poe-inspired Gothicism, while laying out Messiaen’s lifelong signatures, including birdsong, piercing woodwind choirs, and mystical blocks of sound. Few symphonic works are more challenging, yet more viscerally thrilling. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast246

"Liszt: Eine Faust-Symphonie" At their first meeting, the day before the premiere of the Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz had introduced Liszt to Part I of Goethe's Faust, sparking a potent recognition of that "something in the air" that would eventually issue in several of Liszt's most ambitious, enduring, and popular works. The Piano Sonata (S. 178) is plausibly thought to embody a Faustian program, while the character portraits of Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles make up the sprawling Eine Faust Symphonie (S. 108), and Liszt composed and orchestrated—with dazzling virtuosity—Episodes from Lenau's Faust. (S. 110) Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast153

"Mahler: Symphony no. 3" Every conceivable single kind of human, natural, physical, and spiritual emotion that has ever existed can be found in this gargantuan six-movement work, which incorporates material not only from Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" song cycle, but also the Night Wanderer's Song of Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra". The first movement alone, with a normal duration of a little more than thirty minutes, sometimes forty, forms Part One of the symphony. Part Two consists of the other five movements and has a duration of about sixty to seventy minutes. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast150

[Project 366 Listener Guide #319] Kids and Toys are what Christmas is about. This Listener Guide proposes some music that is appropriate for young (and young at heart) music lovers. There are three main ideas that intermingle in this montage: children, children’s tales and (of course) toys. More on December 27 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast085-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #85 - 21 Dec 2012)