Tonight -- Show 116: Magic!

This is a repeat of a show from December 2014, which has understandably some references to the Holidays.

There are a number of pieces describing various magical artifacts from The Magic Flute, Mozart's immortal Singspiel (musical play).

There are a few tracks describing elements from Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelungs, the enormous opera cycle, which lasts a total of nearly 15 hours.  This is Wagner's Ring, not to be confused with Tolkien's Ring, even if they are distantly related.

There is an excerpt from Hansel and Gretel, which is a fairy story about the evil magic of a witch.  The opera was written by the original Engelbert Humperdinck.  (There is even a song by the more recent crooner, Engelbert Humperdinck.)

I should have included some songs from the Disney magical fairy tales, but I did not.  Full playlist will be added sometime this weekend!!  Here is a link to the blog about the original broadcast, though the podcast files were never uploaded.  The order was changed slightly.

Archie

Show 101A: Trios

The musical genre of the Trio is very special.  As many of us know, traditional harmony is written in four parts, so when someone writes a trio, the harmony is usually not full in the usual sense.  However, melodically, a trio works harder to get our interest.  There are other tricks that composers use; Bach gets a lot of mileage with implied harmonies, musical lines that fill in more harmony than a single voice can be expected to.

The original show numbered 101, our very first show, had the following playlist:

Bach: our usual introductory piece, the Fugue in A minor, BWV 543.  This is not, of course, a trio.
The Beatles: "You're going to lose that girl", from the Help album, and the movie.
Bach: Trio Sonata in E Flat, BWV 525, i, performed by guitars.
Bach: Terzett from the Christmas Oratorio, "Wenn wird die Zeit erscheinen?"
Episodes: Train Wreck
Bach: Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering, Movt i.
Gordon Lightfoot: Early morning rain (Peter, Paul and Mary)
Haydn: Divertissement No. 2, i - Allegro
Wagner: The Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg (excerpts)
Bach: Tenor aria from Cantata 85, "Seht was die Liebe tut", adapted by William Walton.
Tom Lehrer: Alma
Signoff: Fantasia on Heykens's Starlight Serenade.

For tonight, we add some more trios by Bach, a triple concerto, a few movements from a trio from Beethoven, and one from Mozart, a trio from the so-called Coffee Cantata, and a transcription of a movement from Bach's famous Cantata No. 40, Wachet auf.

Show 215: More Better Concertos!!!

Well, more, anyway!

This is my last original hurrah before classes begin, and I have to rely on recycling older shows.

Part A (Beethoven, Glazunov)

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor - iii (Alfred Brendel)

Glazunov: Violin Concerto in A Minor (Maxim Vengerov)

Part B (Elgar, Siblius, Heykens)

Elgar: Violin Concerto in B Minor (Dong-Suk Kang)

Sibelius: Violin Concerto (Kyung-Wha Chung)

Heykens: Starlight Serenade (Richard Tauber)

Part C (Grieg)

Grieg: Concerto in A Minor for Piano and Orchestra (Philippe Entremont)

Part D (Schumann)

Schumann: Concerto in A minor for Piano (Rudolf Serkin)

Enjoy!

Archie

P.S. For next week-a, I am planning to put up a repeat of my very first show, from July 4th, 2014.  That was a one-hour show, all about Trios.  It was also the only one-hour show, I might add, which explains why I never put it up again.  So I had to supplement it with another hour of music related to the number 3.  I have.  That's for next week.

Arχ²ie.

Show 214: Happy New Year, and Here's Some Music You're Going to Hate!!!

I can't resist.  It's been a trying year in many ways, and I want to get even.

Well, the music is uploaded to the infamous WXPI computer.  I think the system is still shaky, but this link seems to work: WXPI Listen Live.

Here's the minimally annotated playlist.  I played a little more Bach than I usually do, which is a lot.

Part A [Bach, Beethoven, Karl Jenkins]

Bach:  Introduction - BWV 543 (fragment)

Beethoven:  Romanze for Violin and Orchestra Nr 2 in F major, Op. 50

Bach:  Concerto in A minor for Violin, BWV 1041
We play all three movements.

Karl Jenkins:  Adiemus
His most popular hit.

Part B [Bach]

Bach:  Gloria In Excelsis Deo  from the Mass in B minor.

Bach: Italian Concerto for keyboard solo in F major, BWV 971 - Andante  (Angela Hewitt)

Bach: 10 - Brandenburg Concerto No 2
All three movements (Amsterdam Guitar Ensemble), courtesy of Joseph Le Blanc

Bach: Selections from the Musical Offering.
Ricercare a 6

Part C [Bach]

Ricercare a 3
Trio Sonata, II - Allegro
Trio Sonata, IV - Allegro
Group 2, 5 Canons

Part D [Beatles, Dave Brubeck, Leroy Anderson]

Beatles:
The Fool On The Hill (Magical Mystery Tour)
Hello Goodbye (Ibid.)
I will (Album, White)
Long, Long, Long (Ibid.)
Savoy Truffle (Ibid.)

Dave Brubeck: Three to Get Ready

Leroy Anderson:
Blue Tango for orchestra
Fiddle-Faddle for string orchestra

Archie: Tune - Orchestra (A fantasia based on Jonny Heykens's "Starlight Serenade")

Archie

Show 213: Bethany's Music

Added later: As most of our listeners know, we upgraded the Station computers to Windows 10, and I believe that the station software was also upgraded, which threw everything off.  Our link from the Station to the Transmitter is also via the Internet, so WXPI has apparently been off the air for more than a week.

I have no actual information about whether last Saturday's program actually hit the airwaves, but I'm going to air the same program again, mostly because it would be a dirty trick to play on Bethany not to air her program at all; certainly a worse trick than airing her program twice, back to back!  We will have a seriously Christmassy program the following week, which will be Boxing Day.

I interviewed Bethany H. from Montgomery, and we talked about the sorts of music she likes, and her varied musical experiences.  Bethany is an alto (or contralto, as they call the voice type), and sings in the Lycoming Choir, and sang in her high school choir, and acted in at least one musical, namely Shreck, the Musical.  She has an enormous voice range, from low Alto, sneaking into the Tenor range, and all the way up the treble staff (and probably higher!)

They cut the Montgomery Area HS choir program, for lack of interest, and Bethany survived that tragedy.  It is such a tossup (unless one's parents are willing to actually move to a school district with a strong choir program) whether you're going to get the benefit of a good musical education as part of your school program.  Bethany is a math major, and both Bethany and Coral were in my class of Geometry students this last semester, and it was fun teaching them.  (I asked them all whether they'd like to be interviewed on Archie's Archives, but all except these two could not bring themselves to actually say they liked music, though they probably do.)

I'm getting these links up in a hurry, anticipating the worst with the Radio Station, and its unreliable website.  I'll expand the page after the show airs.

Part A:

Part B:

Part C:

Part D:

Show 212: Flutes with Coral

I am interviewing a talented undergraduate, Coral, from Ashland, PA.  She's a mathematics major, also minoring in Computer Science, and an accomplished flutist.  In the interview we discover that she's also trying to teach herself the oboe and the clarinet.

The interview segments are self-explanatory, and serve as a springboard for a number of woodwind-related tracks we play.  We also listen to some 90s-style rock, because that's what Coral likes to listen to when she's off duty!

Part A

Part B

Part C

Part D

An idea whose time has come: Interviews

Because my show is not live—as my listeners and readers know by now—I have not tried to do on-air interview thus far.  But I’m beginning to think that it is time I went in that direction.

I am planning to feature an interview or two for my next show, to start with, one of my students, Coral, who happens to love music, even if mostly popular music.  However, she is also a awesome flutist, so I bet we can make her talk about classical music if we try, especially the flute repertoire.

I do not really mind popular music at all, really.  The Irish group, The Cranberries, used to be one of my favorites.  With Coral, I might have to expand my horizons considerably, because she warned me that a lot of music she likes is “angsty!”  I’m surprised, because Coral is so not an obviously angsty person!

Another student who has agreed to be interviewed, tentatively, is Bethany, who has wide interests in music, but who sings in the choir.  I have to wonder whether she likes the choral repertoire, or whether she likes strictly popular music too, even if she likes a variety of rock performers.

So that’s what you have to look forward to!

Archie

‘’—“”