Program 1: Beethoven to Gershwin: A Quintet of Great Performances
Host Bill McGlaughlin kicks off the 2008 season—a return to the airwaves for the nation's oldest classical music radio series—with music from five stellar concerts here, played by some of the world’s most admired artists. Joshua Bell, Andras Schiff, the Beaux Arts Trio, Elmar Oliveira, and jazz pianist Bill Charlap.
Program 2: Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Mendelssohn
In this broadcast you’ll hear Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Mendelssohn performed by two formidably talented string quartets, American and Viennese: the Borromeo, with pianist Wu Han, and the Artis Quartet Wien.
Program 4: Bill Charlap and Luciana Souza: The American Songbook meets Brazilian Jazz
This week, jazz vocalist Karrin Allyson joins Bill McGlaughlin to host a special double bill spotlighting two remarkable artists from the worlds of jazz and popular song. Here at the Library, Souza and Charlap collaborated with a wonderful lineup of master performers that evoke their musical lineages.
Program 5: Camerata Ireland with Barry Douglas
Camerata Ireland's Library of Congress concert was part of "Rediscover Northern Ireland," a special series of programs presented in Washington, D.C. by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, with funding from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure of the Northern Ireland Government.
Program 6: Soloists of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Bill McGlaughlin plays through Mozart's original manuscript for the Gran Partitta (the Italianate three t's would have been correct in Mozart's day) with oboist Norman Middleton. The Library owns the manuscript for this great wind serenade, a magnificent, symphonic, 50-minute composition considered one of the composer's masterworks.
Program 7: Venice Baroque Orchestra and Alte Musik Berlin
Join us for stunning performances this week by two of Europe's top early music ensembles, the superb Venice Baroque Orchestra and violinist Giuliano Carmignola, plus the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin. Their brilliant concertos by Vivaldi and Tartini, and the "La Follia" of Francesco Geminiani, conjure the golden age of the violin—an era well represented at the Library of Congress, which owns a priceless collection of stringed instruments by Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu, Antonio Amati, and others.
Program 8: Spotlight on the Cello: Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann
This hour, you’ll hear two of the world’s great cellists, British and Hungarian: Steven Isserlis and Miklós Perényi.With great artistry, but very different playing styles, they partner with pianists Jeremy Denk and András Schiff in masterful performances of two major chamber works for the cello, Beethoven’s Sonata in A major, Op. 69, and Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style. Later on in the broadcast, the Beaux Arts Trio’s remarkable cellist, Antonio Meneses, has a moment to shine in a Schubert Notturno.
Program 9: The Corigliano Quartet and the Artis Quartett Wien
One of the great late Beethoven string quartets is the centerpiece this hour. Austria's Artis Quartett Wien displays a masterly stylistic command and a wonderfully rich string sound in the E-flat major quartet, Op. 127. Complementing the Beethoven: music by one of Finland's most important composers, Aulis Sallinen. Oboist Thomas Gallant and the Corigliano Quartet perform his "Echoes from a Play."
Program 10: Chamber Music with Steven Isserlis and Friends
The deeply expressive Schumann Piano Quartet, Op. 47, with its sumptuous slow movement, is among the all-time favorite works for both professional and amateur chamber musicians. Here, it's performed by a definitively all-star lineup of artists celebrated worldwide: violinist Joshua Bell; violist Paul Neubauer; cellist Steven Isserlis; and pianist Jeremy Denk.
Program 11: Copland and Shostakovich: Wartime Compositions
Today the Beaux Arts Trio is one of the most famous, and most admired, classical ensembles in the world-pianist Menahem Pressler, violinist Daniel Hope, and cellist Antonio Meneses. In 1955, when the Beaux Arts made its debut appearance in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium, it was a brand-new group that would set what's been called "the gold standard" for piano trios over the next two generations. For many years a resident ensemble at the Library-and featured in many, many radio broadcasts here over the past half-century-the Beaux Arts is currently making its farewell tour.
Program 12: Korngold in Hollywood
Korngold, at age 9 proclaimed a genius by Mahler, had been celebrated before reaching his 20th year as the greatest child prodigy since Mozart. By the time Korngold first went to Hollywood, he had written a substantial oeuvre, including his operatic masterpiece, "Die Tote Stadt" (1920). Several works were praised or performed by celebrated musicians such as Puccini, Richard Strauss, Felix Weingartner, Artur Schnabel and others. It was, in fact, partly his established reputation in Europe as a “serious” composer that attracted Warner Brothers.
Program 13: Leipzig and Budapest Quartets
Our vintage Budapest Quartet clips from the 1940's give a glimpse of the Library's past aas an institution that has literally made music history in the 20th century, and created a mecca for chamber music lovers. Also--a stunning performance of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet by a modern ensemble, the Leipzig Quartet, with clarinet virtuoso Ricardo Morales, first chair clarinetist with the Philadelphia Orchestra.