Vitězslava Kaprálová undoubtedly would be much better known had she not died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. This brilliant musician was poised to become perhaps the best-known woman composer and conductor in all of Europe. Among her teachers were Vitězslav Novák, Václav Talich, Charles Munch, Nadia Boulanger and Bohuslav Martinů.
We’ll remember Kaprálová this afternoon on The Classical Network, on the anniversary of her birth, with a recording of the piece that brought her her greatest success, the “Military Sinfonietta.” Kaprálová herself conducted the work’s first performance, with Czechoslovakia’s president, Edvard Beneš, in attendance, in 1937. The next year, she conducted it again in London, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, at the Festival of the International Society for Contemporary Music.
Her relationship with Martinů deepened into one of romantic love. We’ll hear some of Martinů’s music, as well, alongside birthday tributes to Liszt pupil William Mason, Pulitzer Prize winners Norman Dello Joio and Leon Kirchner, Austrian composer and arranger Gottfried von Einem, and composer and writer of supernatural fiction E.T.A. Hoffmann.
At 6:00, we’ll get a jump on the Lunar New Year on “Picture Perfect,” with music from movies set along the Silk Road, including “The Adventures of Marco Polo” (Hugo Friedhofer), “Genghis Khan” (Dusan Radic), “Mongol” (Tuomas Kantelinen), and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (Tan Dun).
Cap your day with Kaprálová and a swathe of cinematic silk, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

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