Classical Music Playlist, July 17, 2024It was 307 years ago today, July 17, 1717, that Handel’s “Water Music” was first performed as entertainment for the King as he floated down the River Thames and back. All three suites of the COMPLETE “Water Music” are today's Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 18, 2023The monumental “Organ” Symphony No. 3 by organist-composer Camille Saint-Saëns is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 17, 2023Mozart’s final piano concerto (No. 27), from his final year, is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 16, 2023Reflecting idyllic isolation in his island retirement home and past social isolation from musical life in Sweden, the Symphony No. 5, titled “Solitudo,” by Swedish composer Wilhelm Peterson-Berger is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 15, 2023Using an uncommon grouping of instruments, the intimate Trio for horn, oboe and piano from 1889 by Austrian composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 14, 2023Filled with what the composer said is “the complex, glowing, agitated soul that I feel vibrating through the Bible,” and performed by Jascha Heifetz protégée Zina Schiff, the Ernest Bloch Violin Concerto is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 11, 2023It was 90 years ago, in 1933, that the Florence Price Symphony No. 1 was the first symphonic work by a Black woman to be played by a major American orchestra. A new recording of it by the Chineke! Orchestra is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 10, 2023A quartet of textural variety in its sound and rhythmic vitality in its movement, Edvard Grieg’s groundbreaking and influential String Quartet in G-minor is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 9, 2023Prague-born pianist, composer, teacher and one of Europe’s most admired figures in music, Ignaz Moscheles, wrote his 1832 Piano Concerto No. 5 in London where he lived for about 25 years. It’s today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 8, 2023Based on themes he composed for his earlier 1930s scores to films with stars such as Errol Flynn, Bette Davis and Claude Rains, the 1945 Violin Concerto by Erich Korngold is today’s Midday Masterpiece.
Classical Music Playlist, August 7, 2023With Mozart very much on his mind in 1816, the 19 year old Franz Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5 with a Mozartean feel. It’s today’s Midday Masterpiece.