Retiring the 1812 for the Fourth

I originally posted this on my own blog, Off Topic'd on 7/1/07. I think it still applies. I'll be hosting a program this coming July 4, and while I might not play the selections listed below, I'll be airing other music by American composers that deserve a hearing.


 - Ralph

I'll be doing my WTJU radio program "Gamut" on the 4th of July. This past Sunday in the Washington Post Tim Page offered up some thoughts about music for the Fourth of July. Personally, I like his idea of playing Hans Pfizner, Elliott Carter and Anton Bruckner instead of the usual fare, but both he and I concede that won't work for everyone.

Still, there's plenty of great American classical music that would be appropriate for the Fourth, and I'm not just talking about Sousa either.

Personally, I think it's past time to give the "1812 Overture" a rest. OK, it's got canons, but has anyone listened to this work? Tchaikovsky wrote it to commemorate the Battle of Borodino, where Russian forces turned back Napoleon. The work contains the Russian and the French national anthems, and uses those two tunes to represent the ebb and flow of the two armies.

Is blasting out the "God Save the Tsar" really the best way to celebrate Independence Day? And what about "La Marseillaise"? Perhaps an apologist could construe it as an acknowledgement of Lafayette's contributions, but it wasn't that long ago we insisted those potato strings be called "freedom fries."

So let's forget the Russian overture written by a Russian honoring the victory of a Russian monarch over a French military dictator and trot out some red-blooded American classical music written by real Americans.

In past years I've played some of these works on "Gamut" for the Fourth of July, and I might air some of this for this upcoming program.

Charles Ives: Variations on "America"
- No composer sums up the American spirit of independence of thought than Ives. His variations on this distinctively American tune are original and inspired, and makes more traditional arrangements just sound tired.

Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 66, "Hymn to Glacier Peak"
- Hovhaness was another American original, placidly making his own music without getting sucked into the academic fashions of the day. Hovhaness drew inspiration from mountains, and his symphony to Glacier Park captures the grandeur and spaciousness of this national treasure.

Howard Hanson: "Merry Mount" Suite
- Harris had a distinctly American voice, and his opera "Merry Mount" is a distinctively American story. Based on the short story "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it dramatizes the conflict between the fun-loving colonists of Mount Wollaston, Massachusetts and their more serious Puritan neighbors.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk: Union Paraphrase en Concert
- Gottschalk was an internationally renowned piano virtuoso. In many ways, he was the American Franz Liszt, performing and composing. The "Union Paraphrase" is an excellent example of Gottschalk's technique and a rousing piece of musical Americana.

Many celebrations will features some Aaron Copland (usually "Fanfare for the Common Man"), or some Leonard Bernstein -- good choices, but there are so many more. We have a rich classical music tradition stretching back over 200 years -- music written by Americans that have a distinctively American voice that speaks to us today.

This Fourth of July, I'm declaring independence from unimaginative programming. Who's with me?

- Ralph

Guilty Pleasures at the Operas

On Sunday, February 26, at 2 P.M. our Sunday Opera Matinee resumes after the conclusion of our Rock Marathon that achieved fundraising wonders for WTJU. We will be presenting Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chenier (1896), a perennial audience favorite.

Chenier is one of those operas that is beloved of audiences but deprecated by critics. Giordano (1867-1948) was possessed of limited compositional skills. But he knew a good story when he encountered one in the life of the Parisian poet and patriot André Chenier, who was a victim of the French Revolution. The background for the libretto by Luigi Illica could hardly be more compelling, and it lent itself to the operatic style known as verismo. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries composers such as Ponchielli, Mascagni, Puccini, and Giordano set their tales of dramatic, often violent confrontation in the gritty conflicts of ordinary people taken from daily life.

The vocal score features great moments for the three principal characters, the tenor Chenier, the soprano Maddalena, and the baritone Gérard. Un di all'azzuro spazio, La mamma morta, and Nemico della Patria are well known to all opera lovers. The rousing finale when Chenier and Maddalena go off to face the guillotine together, if sung by the right heroic voices, is guaranteed to bring any audience cheering to its feet as the final curtain falls.

Chenier is an irresistible role for tenors with big, Italianate voices. The role has been sung by the greats: Caruso, Tamagno, Pertile, Martinelli, Lauri-Volpi, Corelli, Tucker, del Monaco, Domingo, and Pavarotti, to name just a few. When paired with del Monaco, a young Renata Tebaldi was unforgettable as Maddalena.



Although somewhat out of fashion today (we hardly have the voices to do the principal roles justice), Chenier is among those operas like Faust, Adriana Lecouvreur, and Cavalleria Rusticana that will remain in the repertoire so long as opera audiences love great singing and a heavy dose of melodrama.

Tune in this Sunday. It may not be Mozart, but you will hear some great singing.

Ah, Bach!

Why do our volunteers give up their time to present programs of carefully-selected music for you? Well, here's a partial answer.

Rob Nowicki was hosting "The Early Music Show" on August 8, 2011, and aired a particularly strong lineup of music from Telemann, Graun, Purcell.... and Bach. 

Ah, Bach! 

Rob aired Bach's Cantata # 169 “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben” BWV 169,  from a Harmonia Mundi release featuring Bernada Fink, mezzosoprano; Frieburger Barockorchester; and Petra Mullejan, director.

After the program, he found the following voicemail from an anonymous caller, whose voice trembled with emotion.

“I am so happy to have heard this wonderful-not wonderful-magnificent!-ecstatic! divine! music…….The Bach has been beyond description-I am enchanted by it!  I wish to send to the man who has been taking care of it all blessings-blessings on him and many, many thanks.  Good bye.”

We know we air great music that can stir the soul. It's wonderful when we receive an occasional acknowledgement.

If you'd like to hear this soul-stirring program, it's available for on-demand listening from our online tape vault. But you need to act soon -- our archive only holds programs aired in the past two weeks, and after that, this show will be lost to the ages.

Off the Deep End? Depends.

Yesterday, while I was hosting "Gamut" I received a call from an unhappy listener who sternly told me that I had finally gone off the deep end, and he wanted his comment on record. OK, here it is.

So what prompted his comment? I think I know. When he called, I had aired the following works (in this order)

• Charles Wuorinen:
    Second Piano Quintet
• Johann Sebastian Bach:
    Cantata No. 4, Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4
• Carl Nielsen:
    Rhapsodisk ouverture "En Fantasirejse til Faeroene"
• Gabriela Lena Frank:
    Hilos (Threads)

He called while the Frank work was airing, so I suspect that was the tipping point. I'm sure Bach and Nielsen brought him to the point of rage. Perhaps he had been listening from the beginning of the program, and music by two living composers was just two too many. That's probably not fair.

Usually listeners call in to complain about something that's happening right at that moment. If he didn't like the Wuorinen, I would have most likely received the rebuke at 6:10 in the morning instead of 7:40, while Hilos was playing.

Gabriela Frank is indeed a young composer (b. 1972), but she has amassed a solid list of awards and recognition for her work. Of course, what's on her resume doesn't matter -- only what her music sounds like.

I couldn't find an example of Hilos to share, but there is this performance of another Frank work on YouTube of her Danza Peruana, which is fairly representative of her style.



As you can hear, it's far form the toolbox-descending-a-staircase school of academic composition that many people think (unfairly) is modern classical music.

I find Frank's music fresh, tonal, tuneful and well-crafted.

But I think I understand where my listener was coming from. We all expect different things from classical music. And it's when those expectations aren't met that there's trouble. For some, classical music is soothing and calming -- sort of like high-brow Muzak. For others, it's about revisiting the masterworks to perpetually gain new insight.

Some are fascinated by the subtle variety of the human voice, especially among opera singers. Others can't stand the sound of all that caterwalling and prefer only instrumental music. Some find early music charming, while others think it's crude and unappealing.

And we can go still further. Is the Baroque period the apotheosis of music? Some agree, others don't. How about the three B's? Are they the greatest composers of all time? You'll find plenty of folks on either side of that question.

So let's get back to my caller. Something about the Frank composition prompted him to call. And so I've put his call on record. But I think his assertion is just a little inaccurate. I don't think I went off the deep end of the pool -- I think I went off the deep end of his pool.

And that's OK.

Because at the same time, I just entered the shallow end of someone else's.

How We Program the Sunday Opera Matinee

Longtime listeners to WTJU's Sunday Opera Matinee ask us, "How do you decide what to program?" Our signature is programming unfamiliar works, sometimes by unfamiliar composers. We tend to limit the number of works from the standard repertoire because opera lovers can see those works on stage, either live or via broadcast, fairly frequently. The world's major opera companies tend to program works from the standard repertoire because those are the works that sell the most tickets. Moreover, singers are reluctant to learn new roles for the stage of works that are unlikely to be staged elsewhere. We are not constrained by having millions of dollars of costs, both fixed and operating, as major opera companies are. So we take advantage of the flexibility to present lesser known works.

The paramount consideration in the programming decision is whether our listeners will enjoy and appreciate the work and the performance. There is no point in programming a performance of any work that is dull, unimaginative, or poorly performed, especially if the work has little to recommend it musically. Given the choice between programming Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers) or Carmen, we tend to favor The Pearl Fishers, not because it is a better work than Carmen (far from it!), but because many of our listeners will get to hear this work for the first and perhaps the only time. But we will only program The Pearl Fishers when we can find a performance that merits being programmed.

Sometimes we like to introduce listeners to a composer whose works have been largely forgotten. An example is Eugen D'Albert's Tiefland. The work is unique in being the only example of German verismo opera that remains in the repertoire. D'Albert is a largely forgotten composer, but Tiefland remains tenuously in the repertoire, especially in Germany, and it needs to be heard and appreciated more widely.

Some works, despite their musical and/or dramatic flaws, are redeemed by a great performance. Massenet's Esclarmonde, while not the composer's best work, was taken up and recorded by the great Joan Sutherland. Hearing her sing this music about as well as it can be sung merits its being programmed and enjoyed by a wider audience.

Occasionally we encounter a work, either in a staged performance or in a recording, that is so compelling that we must program it, even if it is not familiar to most opera lovers. The live recording of Wagner's early opera Rienzi from Munich with Rene Kollo in the title role and Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting is so compelling that it cried out to be programmed. Deutsche Oper Berlin's production from 2009-10 was so good that we just had to share this flawed but compelling work with those of our listeners who could not see the production live.

Occasionally we will get a request from a listener that inspires a programming decision. A listener asked to hear the great 1953 recording of Tosca with Maria Callas in the title role. We are never jaded, but sometimes we overlook recordings of works that are familiar to us, but that will be heard by many listeners for the first time. Everyone must hear (and see) La Bohème for the first time, not to mention hear Callas sing for the first time.

We do not just program our favorite performances of best-loved works (we went through all of them years ago!), but we do program performances that both entertain and inspire. It takes a lot of work to prepare a presentation for broadcast, but nothing could be more fulfilling than to have a listener tell us how much he or she appreciated being introduced to a new work or a new performance. We've been doing that for two decades, so tune in on Sunday afternoons at 2 P.M. and enjoy! If you have a suggestion or comment, don't hesitate to call us when we are on the air at 924-3959 or email wtju@virginia.edu. Our Sunday Opera Matinee schedule may be found at our website, wtju.net.

Return of the Radio Star

Tomorrow morning, I will be back on the air as the host of "Gamut," and I promise a very special show.

So where have I been? Well, health issues forced me to give up the program back in August, and I was not able to return until this week. Things are much better now, and so I'm back (I know some people will want more information, but the folks that need to know the details of my condition already know, so let's just leave it at that).

So what to do after a three-month absence? This past summer when it looked like WTJU would drop classical programming entirely, I decided I would have a final show ready just in case. As you know, thanks to the support from the community, that didn't happen, so I shelved the program.

Normally, "Gamut" is about surveying the length and breadth of classical music -- which is why I never repeat a work on the show (easiest way to force me to move on). For that final show, though, I thought I would take a look back and play some of my favorite works that perhaps you might have missed.

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed the right way to return to the air. So tomorrow it will be survey of some of my favorite works that I've aired before. Next week, we'll return to our normal survey mode.

So what can you expect? Works both short and long. I'd like to share the Hessenberg Second Symphony with you, one of the best-constructed works of the 20th Century in my opinion. I'll also be playing a symphony by Hovhaness, Steve Reich's "Clapping Music," and perhaps a few other contemporary goodies.

If I can find the disc, I'll air some baroque music by Heinichen, a Hummel piano concerto, and Tallis' "Spem in Alum" for 40 voices. Perhaps some Dvorak, Palestrina, Praetorious, and even some Machaut if I can find the time.

I'm thankful to be back, and especially grateful to all of my colleagues in the classical department who stepped forward and volunteered to keep the show going. If you think it's a sacrifice to get up early once a week to put on a radio show at six in the morning, try doing it twice a week! That's what some of our dedicated volunteers did. And remember, none of us get paid -- we do this for the love of the music.

If you're excited about my return (or not), if you too feel grateful to the folks who kept "Gamut" going, then please remember to share the love when our Classical Fund-Raising Music Marathon starts in a few weeks. As much as I appreciate the phone calls and the well-wishes, it's how much comes in from listeners to help fund the operation of WTJU that will really speak volumes.

I look forward to returning to the airways tomorrow, so we can continue our exploration of this amazingly diverse world of classical music together. Remember: "Gamut" 6-9 AM exclusively on WTJU, 91.1FM.

It's a date.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who came out to the WTJU Town Hall meeting this past Monday. I was afraid that we would have an empty room with 20 people scattered about, but instead approximately 250 volunteers and listeners crammed the hall and flowed out into the lobby. Such a public show of support impressed the decision makers, I think. And at the very least it made me feel very grateful and humble.

I'm grateful that there are folks who care as deeply about the music we play as our volunteer announcers. Grateful that so many would show up on a miserable, rainy evening to show their support. Radio listening is a very passive activity -- we're grateful you share our passion.

I'm humbled by the thought that so many care. As you can imagine, doing "Gamut" every week for the past 19 years has led to a little bit of complacency. There have been times when I've not been at the top of my game, when I didn't choose the music as carefully as I could have. I've sometimes forgotten what a privilege it's been to serve this audience without the constraints my colleagues at other classical-format station face.

But this station isn't about me -- it's about you, the listener. All those who showed up to the Town Hall meeting demonstrated how strong their connection to the music we present is. And because of their action, I promise to redouble my effort to make every minute of "Gamut" worthy of your attention.

The station will still be changing soon, and listener input will play a role in the direction of that change. Those who showed up at the meeting did more than their part -- but even if you couldnattend, you can still make your voice heard.

Visit virginia.edu/wtjuforum or call 434-971-8678 to leave your comments on how you think WTJU can improve to meet its newest challenges.

In the meantime, we'll just keep doing what we do best -- providing you with the best classical, jazz, rock, folk, and world music we can find. Music that's we hope you'll continue love as much as we do.

WTJU's Changing --

Big changes are coming to WTJU, and they'll be here in August.

We are at a juncture in the life of 53-year-old WTJU where change is needed in order to build listenership, student involvement and revenue. This is your invitation to help shape the station.

Our current schedule is being revised, and the future of classical music at the station -- and how it fits into this plan -- is up for discussion.

You can be part of that discussion. The University of Virginia has set up a forum where listeners (like yourself) and station volunteers (like me) can have their say. And your voice does matter.

One of the features of the change is to make the schedule more consistent by moving each genre to its own part of the day. That means that at the very least, our evening classical programming will go away.

Already slated to be canceled:

The Early Music Show, our self-produced program of medieval and renaissance music.

Five-Star Edition, which featured outstanding contemporary and archival performances of the basic repertoire.


Eventide, with Andrew Pratt - lush, romantic music for evening listening


A Time for Singing - An Shaffer's long-running show (over 20 years) showcasing the great opera singers.

Portrait of the Artist - Our weekly look at a great composer, performer, or ensemble.

Mitchell with Music - The avuncular John Mitchell's long-running program of classical music and artist interviews.

What happens to our morning classical programming? And our Sunday afternoon opera? And our other programs? That depends, in part, on you and your response to the forum's survey.

Now is the time for all good listeners to come to the aid of their music. Because come August, everything changes. Participate in the forum, and have a say in the direction of that change.

WTJU Forum

How to Listen to Classical Music -- w/o baggage

Benjamin F. Carlson continues his excellent series of posts about appreciating classical music. Written in a no-nonsense manner, Carlson's goal is to introduce his fellow twentysomethings to the genre, in part by stripping away all of the perceptions about classical music that just get in the way.

How to Listen to Classical Music, and Enjoy It makes a number of good points, but there's one that really gets to the heart of what classical music on WTJU is all about (and something we think about all the time).

Carlson writes:

One of the first challenges is muzak. Stores play treacly strings as background music for shoppers. Many people have been led to associate the soft bowing of Mozart symphonies with soporific browsing. This is the antithesis of the intended effect. Audience members famously burst into violence at the premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, as they did, in a more deadly way, at Altamont. Indeed, Stravinsky and Mozart are no more background noise than the Rolling Stones—or Django Reinhardt, Lauryn Hill, Animal Collective, or Kanye West. To enjoy any of them, you have to be engaged. 

That's why here at WTJU we often break the unwritten rules of classical programming for the radio. We'll play solo vocal works, complete multi-movement works, contemporary compositions, choral works, medieval and renaissance music, complete operas, and more -- because this is what classical music's all about.

No, some if it won't be appropriate for the dentist's waiting room, but that's not the point. There's more to ice cream than vanilla (or even chocolate). And there's more to classical music than Easy Listening.

Rock on, Mr. Carlson!

Charting a new course away from the charts

There's a big controversy brewing in the UK. BBC Radio 3, which is their classical music channel, will start a weekly Top 20 countdown of the country's top-selling classical releases. The charts will be compiled using both CD sales and downloads, so it will accurately reflect buying trends, but that's not the controversy. The larger question is simply whether or not there's any point to having classical music ape the trappings of popular music in order to attract listeners.

As Rupert Christiansen wrote in his Telegraph article, Radio 3's Classical Top 20 will be very dull indeed,

Why must classical music jump up and down and pretend to be what it isn’t?

What depresses me is the way that classical music is constantly chasing after techniques of the pop sector, and ending up, like a paunchy middle-aged man squeezing himself into a pair of tight blue jeans, looking a bit silly and terminally uncool. The interesting kids I know today with open musical minds aren’t the slightest bit interested in the charts: they have the confidence to listen to what they like and explore without reference to such crude and naff indicators as “the Top 20.”

Why can’t [classical music] stand aside from hype and ephemera and the silly business of judging success by numbers, and instead focus on its deepest strength - feeding a deep and serious appetite for art in which quality isn’t judged by its place in a weekly sales list?

 Well, we agree. And that's why WTJU plays the kind of classical music it does. Granted, for some people it can be tough listening. We don't program our classical music to be an upscale substitute for Muzak -- lots of lush, orchestral music with a smattering of pleasing piano renderings for your background listening pleasure..

I doubt most of what we air would show up on a Top 20 chart, but that's OK. Safe to say all of our announcers have "a deep and serious appetite for art" and program their shows accordingly. Do you have the confidence to listen to what you like and explore outside the tried-and-true? (although we do play a fair amount of that as well)

Well then. Turn your radio dial to 91.1fm, or connect to our Internet feed and let's go!

One Thing Leads to Another

I host "Gamut." And at least once every show, I'll say the following:

This is Gamut, the program that each weeks runs the gamut of music from the Middle Ages all the way up to the present. And over the course of X number of shows, we have yet to repeat a work (at least on purpose) and we've yet to run out of great music to share with you.

How is that possible? Simple. Just dig a little beneath the surface.

For example: I'm airing selections from a new recording this morning, "Soviet Russian Viola Music." It's not only providing me with some great music, but also some leads I can explore to find even more.

On this disc are five composers seldom heard these days -- not because of they wrote poor quality music, but rather because Western musicians haven't dug deeply enough into the Russian repertoire.




Vadim Borisovsky was the founder of the Russian viola school, and many of the works on this new recording are dedicated to him. One of them is by Vladimir Nikolayevich Kryukov, who studied under Myaskovsky and wrote the score for the "Battleship Potemkin. Another is a work by Sergey Nikiforovich Vasilenko, who would later teach Aram Khachaturian (Comedian's Gallop, Spartacus).

Then there's Grigory Samuilvoich Frid, an amazingly prolific composer who broke free from the yoke of Soviet Realism in the 1950's. And Yulian Grigor'yevich Krein and Vlerian Mikhaylovich Bogdanov-Berezovksy, who was a member of the St. Petersburg Union of Composers along with Shostakovich.



All of these men have unique compositional voices, and all produced a significant amount of music that was regularly performed.

It would take years for me to air a significant portion of it. And this is just one small example. Almost every country in Europe and the Americas (as well as quite a few in Asia) have an equally dense and diverse repertoire of native classical music.

So I'm not worried about running out of material. There's plenty still left to discover, and most of it just as good -- if not better -- than what's already been unearthed.

Does Commentary Enhance Enjoyment of Classical Music?

How useful to listeners of classical music are program notes. Do they enhance or inhibit the enjoyment and appreciation of the music? Most live performances of classical music offer program notes, with brief commentary about the artists, composers, and the works to be performed, sometimes with historical context. Some radio announcers who present classical music offer almost no commentary, while others offer commentary of varying lengths and informative quality. Does this commentary enhance the listening experience or merely get in the way?

A recent article in the journal Psychology of Music by Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis of the University of Arkansas, suggests that commentary about the music to be performed may interfere with the directness and intimacy with which listeners are able to experience a work. It is as though the listener were experiencing the work through someone else's ears. Her research suggests that listeners enjoy the music more without descriptive commentary that with the commentary. Perhaps non-professional listeners try too hard to identify the elements that they are told are present than simply enjoying the experience as a purely sensory, non-verbal experience. It seems that listeners appreciate learning about the circumstances of a work's composition more than information about the work's structure or content.

Obviously, at a live performance the concertgoer can choose to read or not read the program notes, but the listener is captive to a radio performance. Certain kinds of commentary are virtually indispensable in presenting a radio performance. The plot synopsis of an opera, particularly one in a foreign language, is particularly useful to listeners. But most commentary that precedes radio performances of classical music could be eliminated with little or no loss of enjoyment for listeners. Very few listeners care in the least about the harmonic scheme of the Eroica Symphony, but many would find it interesting that legend has it that Beethoven furiously struck out his dedication to Napoleon when Bonaparte assumed the imperial crown. That kind of comment places the work in historical context, tells us something about Beethoven's political views, and gives some insight into the frequently used caption for the Third Symphony.

Especially when a radio announcer is obliged to attend to other kinds of business on the air, probably the less commentary about the programmed piece, the better. As in so many aspects of life, less is usually more.

WTJU - Going off the charts

One of the things we wrestle with here at WTJU is how to strike the balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Part of the challenge is that we could simply stick to the top 100 classical works, and few would be the wiser. That's the attitude of kickassclassical.com, a site that embraces the concept of Top 40 for classical music and celebrates the most familiar works (and only the most familiar works). They've even produced a fun video running down the top 10 classical works.



There's nothing wrong with that approach. Classical music as a genre isn't a familiar one to most people, so even reiterating the basics can help raise awareness of music.

We want to go farther. Classics 101 is fine, but at some point there has to be a Classics 102, and a Classics 201, 301, etc. That's what we hope to provide here at WTJU. You'll hear all of the major composers, of course, and a healthy dose of the standard repertoire. You'll also here a greater sampling of those composers' repertoires, and many composers that most people haven't heard of.

But there's a point to this. There's a piece of music that will speak directly to you. And that piece might not be in the Top 100. So by varying our playlists, you have a greater chance of hearing that one work that will go straight to your heart.

It's happened to all of the announcers here at one time or the other. We hope to share that experience with you.

State of Classical Radio - WTJU style

In an intriguing interview, "Ten Questions for a Critic: The State of Classical Music," Tom Huizenge chatted with Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette. The questions ranged from the future of live performance to the situation of composers today.

Talking about classical music on the radio, Midgette observed:

I hear an awful lot about classical radio and people's frustration with it. And people's frustration with the conventionality of the programming.[emphasis mine] That real classical music lovers are frustrated with having to listen to the real meat and potatoes, the same symphonies over and over again. And yet classical radio stations say that in order to get the donations that we need to survive, this is what we need to play.

And that's the dilemma many stations face. Adventuresome programming, or the same old same old that brings in the pledge dollars.

We've always kept it adventuresome here at WTJU, as even a cursory glance at our schedule will reveal. We feature a complete opera every Sunday, we have dedicated programs for early music, vocal music, and even organ music.

Most of our announcers started off as listeners, and, I think, the kind of listeners Midgette talked about.

We've chosen to explore classical music in all its diversity and not just play the same old same old. We think it's worthwhile, but do you?

Because the other part of what Midgette points out is true as well. When you stray beyond the confines of classical Muzak, you start to lose mass appeal -- and potential donors.

So if you're someone looking for something more than just the "meat and potatoes" kind of classical programming, welcome to the sonic smorgasbord that is WTJU.

And if you're already partaking of the buffet, then let me ask: have you made your donation to support WTJU? We're not at the point where WTJU needs to choose between playing real classical music and starving, or playing classical pops and thriving -- and your donation ensures it stays that way.

Favorite Composer?

One of the most difficult questions for me to answer is this:

"Who's your favorite composer?"

For some, it's easy. I know some folks who consider Bach the greatest composer of all time. And a few others who think it's Mozart. And they consider that composer to be the greatest because that's who they enjoy the most.

But it's more difficult for me, because I try to listen to each work in the aesthetic context it was written in. I'm not prepared to say that a Palestrina mass is better (or worse) than a Brahms piano sonata. Or that a Haydn symphony is superior to a Dowland lute song. Composers are partially bound by the resources and aesthetics of their day -- the ones that transcend those limitations and speak to us today are the truly great ones.

I have a selection of favorite composers, but I freely admit that not all of them are considered the "greatest," and no one composer matches my emotional need for music all of the time. Sometimes I like the over-caffeinated restlessness of Steve Reich's compositions. Other times the calm serenity of a Dufay mass fills the bill.

Beethoven may have written the greatest symphonies (according to many), but Alan Hovhaness' Symphony No. 2 "Mysterious Mountain" is a work I find consistently moving.

Maybe that's why "Gamut" is the type of show it is. I haven't found that one favorite composer yet, and so I keep looking.

No worries, though. Searching through the collected body of classical music from the past thousand years has been more than half the fun.

- Ralph

What's Classical Music? Part 4 - Concerto concerns

Continuing the discussion of what makes classical music classical. My basic rule of thumb is that classical music is primarily the creation of a single creative voice. Brahms came up with the ideas for his first symphony. He wrote out the sketch score (didn't hire an arranger), he orchestrated it (didn't hire an orchestrator), he edited it -- the music is the product of a singl musical mind.

But there's lots of exceptions to that rule -- including one most people aren't aware of. Concertos.

These days you can expect to go hear a performance of a Mozart piano concerto and -- if you're really familiar with the work -- will know every note, even the cadenza. It's not to say that the performance can't be thrilling, but it will most likely run down the rails laid down by Mozart in his music.

Except that he wasn't that strict -- and neither were other classical and romantic era composers. When Mozart wrote his piano concerti, it was expected that the soloist would improvise the cadenza (that part near the end of the first movement when everybody stops playing).

In fact, if you pay attention, you can still hear a vestige of that tradition. In most concertos the soloists' cadenza ends on a single trilled note. Originally that was the signal for the orchestra to come back in. This improvised cadenza concept is one still used in jazz, but has mostly vanished in classical music.

By the mid 1800s' composers (and prominent performers) were supplying written-out cadenzas for soloists as an option. Eventually they became standard, and during the 20th Century it was rare that a cadenza was left to chance.

But there's still some remaining messiness. A particular cadenza may be the commonly used one for a concerto -- but if it's not by the composer does it matter? What about other versions? What about a performance where the cadenza is improvised?

This is another exception to my general rule that simply lands on the side of taste. If it sounds good, if the cadenza makes sense musically with the concerto, then I'll probably program it. But that's just me.

- Ralph

What's Classical Music? Part 3 - Lost in Transcription

In parts 1 & 2 I talked about what I personally define as classical music (at least for the purposes of choosing works to broadcast). Part 1 offered the core definition -- true piece of classical music is the creation of a single mind. Part 2 looked at one of the problems with that definition -- what about early music where that single mind wasn't very specific about things?

A reader asked a valid question: what about arrangements and transcriptions? It's another area of messiness. The Canadian Brass have a fine arrangement of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," but it doesn't fit my personal criteria. Vivaldi very clearly orchestrated the work the way he wanted it heard -- and it didn't include any brass!

But while modern transcriptions of baroque and renaissance works are easy to classify, others blur the line.

It was a common practice in the 1800's to offer piano transcriptions of orchestral (and sometimes chamber) works. Some of it was hackwork, but not always. Brahms created piano four-hands versions of his symphonies. When it's the original composer making the decisions as to what get emphasized, what goes to the background, etc., it increases the validity of the transcription in my opinion (enough that I might actually air it).

Composers regularly create concert suites out of their ballet and opera scores. All perfectly legit. But what if one composer arranges the music of another?

Many professional arrangers are very, very good -- but their arrangements tend to be facile and superficial. The Browns aren't interested in a five-piano version of Schoenberg's piano music -- they want crowd pleasers like "Rhapsody in Blue!"

Mussorgsky wrote "Pictures at an Exhibition" as a solo piano work. But Maurice Ravel's orchestration of it has becom part of the repertoire. So is it legit? I think so, because Ravel's added depth to the work through his orchestration (although I would still think it important to hear the original).

Brahm's "Variations on a theme by Haydn" uses Haydn as a starting point and constructs original material around it -- definitely legit. And Brahms wrote both an orchestral version and a two-piano version (both of which I've aired).

For me, whether a transcription or arrangement works depends on whether the composer did it themselves (legit), or brought something musically significant to the original work (like Ravel did for Mussorgsky, but not like the Canadian Brass' arranger did for Tchaikovsky).

But wait, there's more. What about works started by one composer and finished by another? We'll save that discussion for another post!

- Ralph

What's Classical Music? Part 2 - Medieval Mystery

In part one I outlined some of the guidelines I personally use to select music to air on "Gamut." And for the most part, that rule works pretty well. What is classical music? Primarily (IMHO) it's music conceived, composed, arranged, and notated by a single person.

OK, that's pretty straightforward if you're dealing with Beethoven, or Vaughan Williams, or Brahms, or Corelli. But what about music from an earlier time?

The importance of the composer is something that really didn't come about until the 13oo's -- and even then it was primarily in the field of sacred compositions. It would be another 200 years before composer names were regularly attached to the more popular forms of music.

And there's the question of notation. Scholars may debate how loud Mozart intended a passage to be played when he marked it double forte. But the notation makes it clear that he wanted a particular combination of instruments to play louder (to some degree) at that spot in the composition.

But musical notation hasn't always been that exact. Instrumental combinations (or in some cases even voices) weren't specified in many compositions from the renaissance and earlier. The earliest examples of notation are little more than lines above the text, indicating the general direction the melody should take. They served more as reminders for singers who (presumably) already knew the tune.

And up through the 1400's, secular music wasn't written down at all. Musicians were expected to just know all the top hits, in the same way that modern professional musicians can play the standards without referring to the music.

What makes music classical when we don't know who the composer was, or what forces he (and occasionally she) intended? My personal rule for early music is this: if the performance gets as close as possible to the original intent and/or sound of the composition -- and is an engaging performance in its own right -- then I'll air it.

There are many different versions of the anonymous "Greensleeves" that I'll air. Solo lute, lute and voice, renaissance instrumental ensemble -- all those are valid, and represent the music as it would have been heard at the time. An arrangement for brass quintet? Sorry, no.

Ditto for the loosey-goosey scores of the medieval and renaissance sacred composers. We may not know how many voices Machaut intended on each part, but we do know he intended it to be sung. So a small vocal quartet works, as does a large choir. A saxophone quintet? No.

So rule two: if the composer's exact intentions are unknown, then performances that come as close as possible to what scholarship indicates they might be qualifies as classical music for me.

But there's more to the messy world of classical music. I'll explain in part 3.

Classical Programming at WTJU -- Who Decides?

Marty Ronish, in Scanning the Dial, recently posed a question to the classical music personnel working in public radio: how do you program your station?

In her post, "Programming - Our Ongoing Controversy in Public Radio," Ronish sums up the general industry practices this way:

Most public stations have a music director or program director who chooses all the music, though a few brave ones let the hosts choose their own. Most do “dayparting” where they choose upbeat music in the morning, longer works in the evening, and calming music at night. They have hierarchies they’ve developed from focus groups: no vocal music, definitely no solo harpsichord, nothing dissonant, play chamber music sparingly, lots of orchestral music, plenty of Baroque and Classical but not much 20th century, and go easy on too much flute and violin.

Well, count us as one of the brave ones, then. Here at WTJU each announcer gets to choose their own music.

There are some guidelines, of course.

1) Avoid playing the same work sooner than six weeks from last airing. This may seem like a long time, but play something twice in the same months and we'll get call complaining that we're airing the same thing "all the time."

2) Respect the music -- air complete works. There are exceptions, of course. Opera overtures, individual lied, and other pieces meant by the composer to be excerpted are fine. But if you're going to air a symphony, air all the music, not just the slow movment.

3) Program classical music. This can be as messy as trying to figure out the line between porn and art ("I'll know it when I see it" - or in this case, hear it). But on the whole, this means sticking to the work as originally composed. So a Beethoven piano sonata on piano, fine; arranged for accordion and pan flutes, probably not. There's much more to this guideline, enough to merit a post by itself (which I'll do another time).

4) If it's worth listening to, it's worth airing. So, at WTJU, there are really no banned genres. Choral music, solo voice, solo violin, organ, contemporary music, medieval music, renaissance music -- if the announcer thinks it's worth presenting to the audience, then out it goes.

We could certainly expand our coverage by reigning in our volunteer announcers. Were we to follow Marty Ronish's outline, WTJU might have a larger audience. But would it still be WTJU?

Our continued commitment to our free-roaming programming suggests we've already asked and answered that question.

But what's your opinion?

- Ralph