• Jaap Schröder Dies Early Music Pioneer

    Jaap Schröder Dies Early Music Pioneer

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    With only hours remaining in 2019, the waning year lashed out to claim its last high-profile musical victim.

    Violinist Jaap Schröder has joined his former colleagues, harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012 at 83), flutist and conductor Frans Brüggen (d. 2014 at 79), and cellist Anner Bylsma (d. July 25 at 85) in the Great Beyond. The four recorded together, in various permutations, as chamber musicians and as members of Concerto Amsterdam.

    Concerto Amsterdam was established by Shröder in 1960, employing members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The ensemble started out playing on modern instruments, using historically-informed techniques, but gradually transitioned to period instruments.

    Schröder was also director and concertmaster of the Academy of Ancient Music and served as visiting music director of the Smithsonian Chamber Players. He died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 94.


    Bylsma, Schröder, Leonhardt and Brüggen (pictured, left to right) perform Telemann’s “Paris” Quartet No. 4


  • Classical Music on The Classical Network Today

    Classical Music on The Classical Network Today

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    For many, January 2 means back to work. But not for Carl Hemmingsen.

    Join me this afternoon on The Classical Network, as I fill in for my hard-working, though still-vacationing, radio colleague.

    First, I’ll be your host for today’s Noontime Concert, from Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center in New York City, a recital featuring violinist Chloé Kiffer and pianist Alexandre Moutouzkine. On the program will be “Fratres” by Arvo Pärt, the “Suite Italienne” by Igor Stravinsky (after “Pulcinella”), and violin sonatas by Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel.

    Then, immediately following the concert broadcast, which should conclude before 1:30, I’ll have a musical remembrance of violinist Jaap Schröder, who died on Tuesday at the age of 94.

    As we approach 2:00, you’ll be the indirect beneficiary of the largesse of my friends and family, as I share some of the bounty of this year’s Christmas haul. I’ll be reaching into my stocking for newly-acquired music by George Antheil, Ruth Gipps, Wilfred Josephs, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Karl Weigl.

    New Year’s is over, but there’s still plenty of peppermint and wassail in our tanks, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.


  • Nostalgia Relived Take Me Back

    Nostalgia Relived Take Me Back

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    Take me back, please.


  • Happy Tuber New Year Celebration

    Happy Tuber New Year Celebration

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    Happy Tuber New Year


  • Franz Waxman’s Hilarious New Year’s Party Piece

    Franz Waxman’s Hilarious New Year’s Party Piece

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    Franz Waxman, of course, was one of the great film composers. His music can be heard in “The Bride of Frankenstein,” “Rebecca,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “A Place in the Sun,” “Rear Window,” “Peyton Place,” “The Spirit of St. Louis,” and dozens of others.

    It was customary that Waxman and his family would get together with their neighbors, the Jascha Heifetzes, to welcome the new year with an evening of chamber music. Other guests on these occasions would include violist William Primrose and cellist Gregor Piatigorsky.

    Mainstream classical fare would dominate the festivities until the countdown to midnight. With the turn of the year, the musical selections would become a bit more frivolous.

    Waxman composed his “Auld Lang Syne Variations” in 1947, for one such gathering. This party piece sends up the traditional New Year’s anthem in the styles of several well-known composers.

    Feel free to play along and test your musical knowledge. You’ll find further clues in the work’s subtitles, listed below the video. One can only imagine Heifetz stepping out in “Chaconne a Son Gout.”

    Happy New Year!


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