Today is the birthday of Welsh composer Grace Williams. This afternoon on The Classical Network, I’ll be sharing her best-loved music, the “Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes.” This will be part of an hour of works inspired by well-known children’s tunes, including Mozart’s “Variations on ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman’” (we know it better as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ballet “Old King Cole.”

We’ll also have music inspired by the movies, including “Cinéma” (featuring musical portraits of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin) by the French composer Louis Aubert, also born on this date, and a delightful morceau by Chaplin himself. Somewhere along the way, we’ll even celebrate the birthday of violinist Gil Shaham.

At 6:00, it’s chamber music from the legendary Marlboro Music Festival. It will be a program of contrasts – literally – as we juxtapose works by birthday celebrants György Kurtág and Luigi Boccherini and cap the hour with “Contrasts,” music commissioned by Benny Goodman from Béla Bartók.

We’ll call for our pipe, call for our bowl, and call for our fiddler’s three, this afternoon from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.