Music

Classical Music

Beethoven Turns 250 This Year And WPR's Music Staff Are Celebrating

August 20, 2020 - 5:45am

December 16, 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven. It’s a good excuse to celebrate a remarkable composer, whose revolutionary music continues to inspire and influence people.

WPR Music Host Shares Ups, Downs Of Broadcasting From Home

August 14, 2020 - 9:15am

"Morning Classics" host Stephanie Elkins describes broadcasting from home.

Hope, Beauty, And Community Bring Us Resilience

July 29, 2020 - 4:10pm

What gives us resilience? It’s a pertinent question these days, with our country dealing with the twin crises of the coronavirus pandemic and systemic racism. While no recipe exists for resilience, we can find the ingredients all around us — beauty, hope, community. All these ingredients come together in one...

Upstaged at the White House

June 26, 2020 - 11:30pm

The playing was some of the finest in the world. But on this particular occasion in 1986, Vladimir Horowitz was to be upstaged by the President and first lady of the United States.

The East Room of the White House was packed with musicians and political figures. Horowitz was being...

Scottish Novel, Italian Opera

June 25, 2020 - 11:30am

The 38-year-old composer was gambling that his new opera would succeed where others were failing. Gaetano Donizetti was pinning his hopes on a hastily written opera based not on an Italian subject but on a Scottish novel.

The Riot

May 29, 2020 - 11:30am

The Champs-Elysees Theater. May 29th, 1913. One of the most notorious premieres in classical music is about to occur. Pierre Monteux is about to conduct the first performance of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring.

The wife of dancer and choreographer Vaslev Nijinksy has heard bits of the music...

Bruckner's Clutter

May 22, 2020 - 11:30am

He wrote vast dramatic symphonies but Anton Bruckner led a life that tended to be prosaic and more than a little cluttered. He didn’t look like other musicians of the 1880's. He kept his hair cut so short that many people remembered him as being bald.

He wore a short...

The Man I Was Looking For

May 21, 2020 - 3:05pm

He ‘s generally thought of as a singularly English composer, but early in his career, Ralph Vaughan Williams had trouble developing his style in England. He needed the right teacher and he found him in an unexpected place. One of Vaughan Williams' first teachers was Charles Villiers Stanford, who favored...

Dangerous Disobedience

May 15, 2020 - 11:30am

Vienna in 1787. It could be a risky place and time for a composer to make a living. And Antonio Salieri took a big risk. He disobeyed the Emperor.

Salieri had recently returned from Paris where his opera Tarare had been produced. Emperor Joseph the Second ordered Salieri and his...

Toscanini and the Fascists

May 14, 2020 - 11:30am

You might think that conducting an orchestra would be a safe profession, but at times a conductor can fall into a life-threatening situation. So it was with Arturo Toscanini in Bologna,Italy on May 14th, 1931.

Toscanini had accepted an invitation to conduct two concerts in Bologna. The purpose was to...

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Classical Music

Beethoven Turns 250 This Year And WPR's Music Staff Are Celebrating

WPR Music Host Shares Ups, Downs Of Broadcasting From Home

Hope, Beauty, And Community Bring Us Resilience

Upstaged at the White House

Scottish Novel, Italian Opera

The Riot

Bruckner's Clutter

The Man I Was Looking For

Dangerous Disobedience

Toscanini and the Fascists

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