Sliding into Spring and Summer

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 Comas - in concert on June 29th

WWUH Classical Programming -

May and June 2012

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera... Sundays 1:00 - 4:30 pm

Evening Classics... Weekdays 4:00 to 7:00/ 8:00 pm

Drake's Village Brass Band... Mondays 7:00-8:00 pm

Featured Artist

May 7                          Johnny Otis (1921 - 2012)

May 21                        James Solberg

May 28                        Bette Levette

June 4                          Little Walter

June 11                        JW Jones

June 18                        Luther Johnson

June 25                       Joanna Connor

Back to the Roots

May 7                          Rhythm & Blues 

May 14                        Boogie Woogie

May 21                        Texas Blues

May 28                        Jump Blues

June 4                          Delta Blues

June 11                        Kansas City Blues

June 18                        Chicago Blues

June 25                        Louisiana Blues

Thursday Evening Classics

Composer Birthdays

May and June 2012

Presented by Steve Petke

  

May 3

1649 Johann Valentin Meder

1729 Florian Leopold Gassmann

1737 Friedrich Schwindl

1744 Friedrich Wilhelm Weis

1752 Braz Francisco de Lima

1819 Nicola de Giosa

1886 Marcel Dupre

1873 Nikolay Tcherepnin

1874 Jos� de la Cruz Mena

1901 Hugo William Friedhofer

1915 Evencio Castellanos

1917 James Penberthy

1934 Georg Kr�ll

1939 Jonathan Harvey

1959 Shigeru Kan-No

May 10

1697 Jean Marie Leclair

1705 Gallus Zeiler

1741 Johann Michael Schmidt

1760 Claude-Joseph Rouget de L'isle

1776 George T. Smart

1780 Peter Lichtenthal

1800 Nikolay Alexeyevich Titov

1825 Rudolf Viole

1858 Frederick Zech, Jr

1877 Roderich Mojsisovics-Mojsvar

1888 Max Steiner

1894 Dimitri Tiomkin

1898 Herbert Elwell

1905 Louis Kaufman

1907 Harilaos Perpessas

1910 Heinrich Konietzny

1916 Milton Babbitt

1919 Tibor Sarai

1942 Ingram Marshall

Jean Marie Leclair

Birth: May 10, 1697 in Lyons, France

Death: October 22, 1764 in Paris, France

The son of Antoine Leclair, a Lyons lace-maker and amateur cellist, Jean-Marie Leclair was one of 8 children, 6 of whom became violinists. Jean-Marie was often referred to as "the elder" to distinguish him from a younger brother who went by the same name. Leclair was considered a master of both the violin and his father's lacemaking trade by the time he reached adulthood. He intended to follow his father's profession, but in 1722 he was hired as a dancer and ballet-master at Turin, where he likely studied the violin with Giovanni Battista Somis. In 1723 he went to Paris, securing a patron in Joseph Bonnier and publishing his first book of violin sonatas. From 1726-1728 he was again in Turin, studying with Somis while continuing to earn his living as a dancer and composer of ballet music for the Teatro Regio. On his return to Paris, Leclair published a second book of violin sonatas and made his debut at the Concert Spirituel, performing his own sonatas and concertos. Performances of his own music in London, Kassel (where Leclair engaged in a musical "duel" with famed Italian violinist Pietro Locatelli) and Paris earned Leclair a reputation as one of the leading figures of the new French school of violinist-composers. Between 1733-1737 he held a post at the court of Louis XV, but from 1738 he spent 3 months a year at the court of Orange, and from 1740 the remaining 9 months in the service of Fran�ois Du Liz at The Hague. In 1743 he settled in Paris, where in 1746 his Scylla et Glaucus, an op�ra trag�die, was performed by the Acad�mie Royale de Musique. Shortly before his death he separated from his second wife and went to live in a seedy suburb of Paris. On the morning of October 23, 1764 he was found murdered on his own doorstep, almost certainly by his own nephew, though the culprit was never brought to justice. The official investigation of Leclair's suspicious death incriminated both his nephew and his second wife, but neither was ever formally charged with his murder. In addition to violin sonatas, Leclair's published music includes several collections of violin duets, trio sonatas, and concertos. Of his theatre music only Scylla et Glaucus survives. As a violinist Leclair was renowned for his musicianship and his technical brilliance. He was also regarded as a difficult colleague. Leclair took the Italian sonata da chiesa and the sonata da camera and infused them with a stylistic elegance derived largely from the ballet music of Jean-Baptiste Lully. Fittingly, he composed almost exclusively for the violin (he did compose one opera in 1746, but the work never entered the Parisian repertory). His significance as a teacher of the violin, however, is perhaps greater. With a string of pupils including notable French violinists L'abb� le fils, Jean-Josephe Rudolphe, and Pierre Gavini�s, Leclair can truly be called the father of the modern French violin school.

May 17

1732 Francesco Pasquale Ricci

1800 Carl Friedrich Zollner

1808 Charles-Louis-Adolphe Vogel

1819 Johann Nepomuk Kafka

1823 Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby

1850 Antonio Scontrino

1866 Erik Satie

1881 Pascual de Rogatis

1890 Philip James

1896 Brasilio da Cunha Luz Itibere

1900 Nicolai Berezowsky

1901 Werner Egk (Werner Mayer)

1902 John Vincent

1908 Sigismund Toduta

1923 Peter Mennin

1924 Frantisek Kovaricek

1936 Philippe Boesmans

1941 David Howell Cope

1950 Nejat Basegmezler

1951 Paul Amrod

1971 Jason Eckardt

Erik Satie

Birth: May 17, 1866 in Honfleur, France

Death: July 1, 1925 in Paris, France

Satie spent most of his childhood living with grandparents and an eccentric uncle in Honfleur, where he had his first piano lessons. He then moved to Paris to join his father, and enrolled at the Conservatoire, where he studied piano and solfeggio, but failed to meet minimum requirements and was dismissed in 1882. He was described as 'gifted but indolent'. Satie left Paris in 1886, to join the infantry in Arras, but he found military life distasteful and intentionally courted illness to avoid duty. Among his earliest compositions were sets of 3 Gymnop�dies and Gnossiennes for piano, evoking the ancient world by means of pure simplicity, monotonous repetition, and highly original modal harmonies. His early music is most noteworthy for having been written at a time when Wagner's music was dominant in Paris. During this period Satie was earning his living as a caf� pianist in Montmartre. He also contributed to the caf� repertory with songs and little waltzes. In 1898, however, he retired to the industrial suburb of Arcueil-Cachan, where he lived in self-imposed poverty for the rest of his life. He began to write works with bizarre titles, for example the Trois pi�ces en forme de poire for piano four-hands, childlike in their simplicity, incorporating pieces composed independently as well as popular songs of the time. But, realizing that without a sound contrapuntal technique he would not make progress, he then enrolled at the Schola Cantorum (1905-12), where he was taught by d'Indy and Roussel. His music took on a more academic and rigorous quality, and also began to exhibit the dry wit that would become hallmarks of his style. In 1911 Ravel performed some of Satie's early piano pieces and Debussy conducted his own orchestration of two of the Gymnop�dies. Spurred on by the success of these ventures, Satie began to compose more abundantly, continuing to produce sets of small instrumental pieces with absurd titles such as Dried up embryos and Three real flabby preludes (for a dog). Often, as in the piano set Sports et divertissements, the performer is confronted by instructions which appear either absurd or ironically humorous. Satie's modest, mocking art endeared him to a new generation of French composers about the time of World War I. In 1915 he was discovered by Jean Cocteau, and helped create the famous group of French composers, Les Six, which was fashioned after Cocteau's artistic ideal of simplicity in the extreme. Cocteau and Satie collaborated on the ballet Parade, whose score is unconventional in its discontinuous form, repetitive material, and inclusion in the orchestra of a typewriter, a revolver, and other unusual instruments. Perhaps Satie's greatest achievement was to integrate music-hall and other well-known tunes and techniques into so-called serious music. Much of his music has a subdued character, and its charm comes through in its directness and its lack of adherence to any one style. Often his melodies are melancholy and hesitant, his moods exotic or humorous, and his compositions as a whole, short. He was a musical maverick who influenced Debussy and Ravel.

May 24

1610 Giovanni Battista Chinelli

1767 Ferdinand Fr�nzl

1736 Juan de Sesse Y Balaguer

1754 Giacomo Conti

1767 Joseph Ignaz Schnabel

1781 Louis-Francois Dauprat

1820 Francis Jane Fanny Crosby

1841 Tito Mattei

1881 Mikulas Schneider-Trvavsky

1886 Paul Paray

1903 Hilding Hallnas

1905 Zdenek Blazek

1908 Kresimir Fribec

1910 Margers Zarins

1910 Nils-Eric Fougstedt

1922 Sadao Bekku

1930 Hans-Martin Linde

1936 Harold Budd

1941 Konrad Boehmer

1947 Michael G. Horwood

1955 Philip Fried

May 31

1674 bapt. Friedrich Erhard Niedt

1656 Marin Marais

1802 Cesare Pugni

1804 Jeanne-Louise Farrenc Dumont

1817 Edouard Deldevez

1822 Rafael Hernando

1866 Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov

1875 Italo Montemezzi

1879 Mark Hambourg

1902 Billy Mayerl

1914 Akira Ifukube

1923 Wolfgang Lesser

1929 Aladar Zoltan

1934 Karl-Erik Welin

1952 Walter Thompson

1955 Marty Ehrlich

1955 Bruce Adolphe

Marin Marais

Birth: May 31, 1656 in Paris, France

Death: August 15, 1728 in Paris, France

Marais was the preeminent bass viol player in turn-of-the-17th century France. The son of a shoemaker, Marias was a choirboy at St Germain-l'Auxerrois with Michel Richard de Lalande. He studied the bass viol for 6 months with Sainte-Colombe and by 1675 was playing in the Acad�mie orchestra under Lully. In 1679 he obtained a court post as an ordinaire in the musique de la chambre du roi, a position he held until his retirement in 1725. A skilled composer as well as performer, he published his first book of pi�ces de violes in Paris in 1686. In the same year his Idylle dramatique was performed at Versailles. After Lully's death in 1687, Marais collaborated with Louis Lully on Alcide before composing 3 trag�dies en musique of his own for performance at the Op�ra, of which Alcyone was particularly admired for the thundering multiple bass parts of its tempest scene. Marais's Pi�ces en trio, published in partbooks in 1692, was the first such collection by a French composer to appear. It was followed by four collections for one to three viols and a volume of trios with violin. In addition to dance movements they include highly expressive preludes, a virtuoso set of couplets on La folia, tombeaux to his teachers and son, and numerous colorful pi�ces de caract�re. The defining qualities of Marais's viol music are its craftsmanship, stylistic refinement, and mastery of idiom. Admired as a player, Marais was also much in demand as a teacher. He was succeeded at court by his eldest son, Vincent (1677-1737), in 1725. Another son, Roland (c.1685-c.1750), published two collections of pi�ces de viole. Although he composed 4 operas, he is primarily remembered for his some 600 compositions for various combinations of bass viols. These works were in the French tradition of collections of various pieces, rather than the Italian concertos and sonatas. The collections, ranging from 7 to 41 pieces each, consist primarily of dances, fantasies, chaconnes, rondeaux, tombeaux, and pi�ces de caract�re. These last are short, colorful works including descriptive titles such as Les voix humaines and Cloche ou carillon. There is even one work that is meant to describe an operation for the removal of a bladder stone. Marais intended these pieces to be played on any instruments, but they are in fact idiomatically suited for the bass viol and represent the finest collection of pieces for that instrument. It is as the greatest and most important composer for the bass viol that Marais is remembered today.

June 7

1730 Georg Von Pasterwiz

1732 Giuseppe Demachi

1736 Karl Frieberth

1833 Alexander Sascha Ritter

1837 Charles-Alexis Chauvet

1846 Wladyslaw Gorski

1865 Guido Gasperini

1867 Luigi Maurizio Tedeschi

1873 Landon Ronald (Russell)

1874 Theodor Streicher

1891 Athos Palma

1894 Hans Wolf

1897 George Szell

1908 Boris Goldovsky

1911 Franz Reizenstein

1922 Hubert Du Plessis

1928 Charles Strouse

1931 Peter Pindar Stearns

1931 Henry Weinberg

1947 Huub Kerstens

1982 Donika Rudi

June 14

1691 Jan Francisci

1730 Antonio Sacchini;

1760 bapt. Candido Jose Ruano

1763 Johannes Simon Mayr

1769 Pierre-Antoine Dominique Della Maria

1784 Francesco Morlacchi

1835 Nicolay Grigoryevich Rubinstein

1854 Frederik Rung

1865 Auguste Jean Maria Charles Serieyx

1867 Roland Forrest Seitz

1882 Michael Zadora

1901 Emmy Frensel Wegener

1913 Stanley Black

1916 Karl-Rudi Griesbach

1918 Carter Harman

1920 Helmer-Rayner Sinisalo

1932 Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson

1937 Burton Greene

1940 Dary John Mizelle

1947 Michael Mauldin

June 21

1577 Giovanni del Turco

1615 Salvator Rosa

1732 Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach

1786 Charles Edward Horn

1790 Wilhelm Speyer

1805 Karl Friedrich Curschmann

1818 Ernst II Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha

1862 Henry Holden Huss

1865 Albert Herbert Brewer

1892 Hilding Rosenberg

1893 Alois Haba

1898 Avery Claflin

1899 Pavel Haas

1900 Gunnar Ek

1902 Wilhelm Maler

1909 Kurt Schwaen

1910 Charles Jones

1910 Bela Tardos

1932 Lalo Schifrin

1939 Charles Boone

1952 Judith Bingham

June 28

1491 Henry VIII

1547 Cristofano Malvezzi

1712 Jean Jacques Rousseau

1734 Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier

1815 Robert Franz

1831 Joseph Joachim

1847 Sveinbjorn Sveinbjornsson

1852 Hans Huber

1853 Edwin Arthur Jones

1874 Oley Speaks

1885 Giuseppe Mule

1887 Boleslav Vom�čka

1893 Luciano Gallet

1893 Nils Bjorkander

1895 Kazimierz Sikorski

1902 Richard Rodgers

1904 Wlodzimierz Pozniak

1905 Hans [Johann] (Sebastian) Brandts Buys

1906 Safford Cape

1909 Arnold Shaw

1913 George Lloyd

1925 Giselher Klebe

1930 Nikolay Karetnikov

1933 Gunnar Reynir Sveinsson

1938 Pierre Csillag

1946 Robert Xavier Rodriguez

SUNDAY May 6th:

Schubert,Die Schone Muellerin,Schwanengesang May is Blossom Time,thinking of the sappy Sigmund Romberg operetta of that name that drew upon the melodies of Franz Schubert.At this time of year I love to broadcast Schubert's immortal song cycle Die Schone Muellerin (1823).I have featured several historic recordings of it going all the way back to Sunday,September 9.1984,when I broadcast the one that the twentieth century's greatest interpreter of Schubert lieder,German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (b.1925) made in 1961 in early stereo sound for EMI.Then on Sunday,February 18,1990 came the 1945 mono EMI recording with the distinguished Danish tenor Aksel Schiotz (1906-75).Older still is the early electric recording committed to 78 rpm discs in 1933 with the American tenor Richard Crooks (1906-72).Crooks' interpretation was digitally upgraded into CD format under the Delos label in1997.That went over the air on Sunday,May 1,2011.Younger singers of our own time have essayed the song cycle:native German-speaking baritones Michael Schopper and Christion Elsner.Their recordings I have presented in recent years.Now it's English tenor Mark Padmore's turn.The 2009 Harmonia Mundi release of Schubert's Winterreise with Padmore and pianist Paul Lewis was highly praised.That same year Padmore and Lewis teamed up again for HM-USA and took on Die Schone Muellerin.They also recorded Schubert's opus posthumus song cycle known as Schwanengesang.These fourteen songs (Schubert's last lieder compositions) came out on a single HM compact disc in 2011 along with Auf dem Strom,for solo male voice,piano and solo horn.

Sunday May 13th:     

Donizetti,Lucia di lammermoor.This gem of a bel canto opera takes its story from a novel by Sir Walter Scott.The last time i broadcast it on Sunday,June 8,2008 you heard this famous work of Donizetti's in its French language version,titled Lucie de Lammermoor.Originally produced in Naples in 1835,the opera reached Paris in 1839.French soprano Natalie Dessay starred in the title role in a 2002 Virgin Classics CD release of the staged revival of the French version by Opera of Lyon.Madame Dessay sang Lucia again in the original Italian language libretto in the concert hall of the Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg,Russia in 2010.Valery Gergiev directed the Mariinsky orchestra and chorus,with a supporting cast of Russian vocal soloists.The recording of this concert performance was issued on two compact discs in 2001 under the Mariinsky's own label.

Sunday May 20th:

Shakespeare,Timon of Athens,Purcell,Timon of Athens,incidental music.My broad definition of "lyric theater" programming includes spoken word presentations,especially the plays of William Shakespeare.This Sunday's presentation follows up upon the broadcast last month of Much Ado About Nothing,with yet another play of the Bard's to come in a future month.Timon of Athens (1607?) is one of the most obscure of his stage works.Shakespeare scholars are unsure when Timon was written-possibly after King Lear--or even if the play was ever actually performed in the playwright's lifetime.The text as it appears in the Folio of 1623 suggests it is incomplete or was in process of being rewritten into more polished form.Yet large parts of it are in the magnificent poetic style we recognize from Shakespeare's other tragedies.It is thought he was pursuing concepts he had developed in King Lear,taking them to their ultimate extremes.Timon of Athens depicts a totally corrupt society and government.This play is a tragedy of disillusionment.You listeners are priviledged to be able to audition this Shakespeare rarity as recorded uncut in the text of The New Shakespeare edited by John Dover Wilson.The complete plays of Shakespeare were issued on Decca/London LP's in early stereo sound.Timon of Athens came out on three vinyl discs in this series in1961.It was produced in studio by The Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players,directed by George Rylands.

        The story told in Timon of Athens is so horrible and unpalatable to audiences that when the playwright Thomas Shadwell adapted it for the Restoration stage in1678 he sought to sweeten the action somewhat with a love interest for Timon.For a revival of the Shadwell adaptation in 1695 England's greatest composer of the age,Henry Purcell,provided music for a masque incorporated into the banquet scene in Act Two.You'll hear Purcell's incidental music for Timon of Athens as performed by the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir,with six vocal soloists,all the singers and period instrument players under the direction of John Eliot Gardiner.The two Erato CD's that include this music and Purcell's masque in Dioclesian were last broadcast on Sunday,November10,1991.

Sunday May 27th:

Verdi,Requiem,Monk,Songs of Ascension.I frequently program Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem (1874) on the Sunday of the Memorial Day holiday weekend because a Mass for the Dead is appropriate to honor those Americans who died in war,especially in our American Civil War.Verdi's Requiem is an obvious choice,since there are so many recordings of it available.Futhermore,as a mid-nineteenth century choral work,it's something that veterans of the Civil War might conceivably have heard.Verdi's operas were certainly staged in the United States in the 1860's and his tunes were in circulation in the country's popular musicmaking.Verdi was indeed the most popular classical music composer of his time.Today's broadcast of the Verdi Requiem is all the more appropriate because it employs an American recording of the work.A native Italian conductor Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus,as recorded in Symphony Hall in the Windy City in January of 2009.Like other world-class symphony orchestras,this one now has its own record label,CSO Resound.The two-CD CSO release of the Verdi Requiem got a very good review from Peter J. Rabinowitz in the pages of Fanfare magazine,that bible of classical music record criticism (Sept/Oct,2011 issue).There are four internationally acclaimed vocal soloists.

        Now for a song cycle by one of the leading lights of the American musical avant-garde,Meredith Monk (b.1942).She began as a dancer/mime/choreographer in the 1960's,then graduated into a solo singer of her own material.She achieved a breakthrough into lyric theater with Atlas (1992),in which she took on several singing roles in dramatizing her spiritual quest.The ECM recording of Atlas I broadcast on Sunday,June 19,1994.The Songs of Ascent she has rendered into her own personal musical style in (2009) are described as psalms people would sing on their own personal pilgrimages.The song cycle was written for performance at a site in Sonoma County,California where two staircases intertwine in the manner of a double helix.(That in itself has a certain spiritual significance.) Again,Monk herself uses her vioce in various capacities.She is joined by her handpicked ensemble of individual voices,an instrumental group,the Todd Reynolds Quartet,and a chorus,the Montclair State University Singers.Some of these "songs" are in wordless vocalise which may remind the listener of the medieval chants of Hildegard of Bingen.Writing about the 2011 ECM compact disc of Songs of Ascension,Fanfare  reviewer Colin Clarke says,"...There is the hand of genius here...This disc is a remarkable achievement"(Fanfare,Nov/Dec,2011).

Sunday June 3th:

Rossini,Guillaume Tell This,Rossini's last opera,was the model for the later nineteenth century grand operas of Meyerbeer,Gounod and others that would follow.Concerning its grand scale,even before it premiered at the Paris Opera in August of 1829 the theater's directors even then thought it was too long and Rossini was oblidged to cut certain numbers from his score during rehearsal.Twice before I have broadcast an historic 1951 mono LP recording of the Italian language Guglielmo Tell,most recently on Sunday,September 26,2010.Today you get to hear something approaching the entire score of the opera in the original French libretto,employing the new Bartlet critical edition prepared for the Rossini Foundation of Pesaro.It was recorded in concert performance in Rome in the St. Cecilia Hall in 2010.Antonio Pappano directed the orchestra and chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.The hero of German poet Friedrich von Schiller's drama,the Swiss peasant patriot Wilhelm Tell,gives the name to Rossini's opera. The title role is taken by English tenor Gerald Finley.The 2011 EMI Classics release of Guillaume Tell requires three generously timed compact discs.Due to their length of play I will just barely be able to accommodate the whole opera into the Sunday afternoon timeslot,with no time at all for my usual introductory remarks,synopsis of action of theme music.

Sunday June 10th:

Strauss,Daphne,Orchestral Songs.By mid June all the trees here in the Connecticut river valley will be in the splendor of full leaf.Richard Strauss'Daphne (1938) continues a four-hundred-year old tradition of lyric stage works inspired by the ancient Greek myth about the beautiful young women who was turned into a tree.That tradition goes all the way back to 1597 with the performance of Peri and Caccini's Dafne in Florence.Strauss and his librettist Joseph Gregor conceived a "bucolic tragedy" in one long act.It emphasizes the interplay of light and darkness and the contrast between the illumination of the sun,as opposed to that of the moon.Indeed,the sun god desires the nymph Daphne.Her reluctance to return his love causes her to be transformed into a laurel plant whose leaves will crown the heads of poets and heroes.Twice before,in June of 1987 and again in 2003 I presented a Deutsche Grammophon LP recording of Daphne made of its 1964 Vienna Festival staged production,with Karl Bohm leading the Vienna Symphony and chorus of the Vienna State Opera and a cast of famous singers of half a century ago.Daphne was produced for radio broadcast in 1982.Bavarian Radio recorded it in its concert hall in Munich,with Bernard Haitink conducting the chorus and orchestra of Radio Bavaria.Soprano Lucia Popp sang in the title role.EMI reissued the Bavarian Radio broadcast recording in 2011 in its EMI Classics line on two compact discs.

       Richard Strauss married an opera singer in 1897.For his wife Pauline he composed many songs,and he accompanied her soprano voice on piano in recitals they gave together over the many years of their married life.Strauss eventually

orchestrated most of these songs;several other composers also wrote their own orchestral arrangements for a few of them.The various orchestrated songs of Strauss were gathered up into a single CD compilation titled "Poesie" and issued in 2010 under the Virgin Classics label,which is now a subsidiary of EMI.Soprano Diana Damrau essayed the Strauss lieder.Again the recording venue was in Munich and the orchestral accompaniment was provided by the Munich Philharmonic.Christian Thielemann was their director.

SUNDAY JUNE 17tH:

Mahler,Das Lied von der Erde,Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen,Rueckert Lieder,Kindertotenlieder.You could call this Sunday's programming a Mahler songfest.I have previously broadcast one or another recorded version of all of these Mahler compositions for voice.Mahler allowed for Das Lied von der Erde (1909) to be performed by two male voices,tenor and baritone,rather than the more usual pairing of tenor and female contralto.Two of the greatest German vocalists of the mid twentieth century,tenor Fritz Wunderlich and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang "The Song of the Earth" under the incomparable Austrian conductor Josef Krips at the 1964 Vienna Festival.Krips led the Vienna Symphony in a recording made live in concert in the big hall of Vienna's Musikverein.The concert was also broadcast on ORF Radio Austria.Deutsche Grammophon reissued this now classic interpretation of Mahler's syphony-cum-song cycle on a single compact disc in 2011.

         Mahler orchestrated his other song cycles,and you have heard these works in their larger scale conceptions in times past on this program,but in the original piano versions of them we gain insight into the essence and structure of each individual song,and we feel the music as we hear it in a much more intimate way.That's the way you will hear today the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen,Rueckert Lieder and Kindertotenlieder on a 2011 Bridge CD with mezzo Hermine Haselbock and Russell Ryan at the keyboard.

         Now for some examples of the artistry of the man who is arguably the first major songwriter/lyricst in Western musical history,Oswald von Wolkenstein (c. 1377-1445).We know more about him than any other composer of the later medieval period,including exactly what he looked like from his painted portrait.(He had one eye!) Widely traveled,a lusty bon vivant,master of several musical instruments,he was first and foremost a prolific poet with surprisingly modern sensibilities not unlike those of America's own Waly Whitman.Twenty one of Oswald von Wolkenstein's 130 surviving "Songs of Myself" were issued on a single Harmonia Mundi compact disc in 2010.Andreas Scholl sings them by turns in the countertenor or baritone aspects of his voice,backed by the Shield of Harmony quartet of instrumentalists playing various bowed or plucked medieval stringed instruments.

SUNDAY JUNE 24tH:

Foroni,Cristina,Regina di Svezia.This Sunday I invite you listeners to play the "Gay Name Game" along with me.Some of you already know I also host a Thursday evening public affairs program on WWUH,"Gay Spirit":thirty one years of uninterrupted,week-by-week broadast in service of Greater Hartford's lesbian'gay,bisexual and transgender community."Gay Spirit' is most likely the longest running gay radio show in the United States,if not the world-a show that has surely acquired historic significance.Oldtime gay liberationists like myself personally remember the historic Stonewall rebellion,the gay riot which took place in New York City's Greenwich Village during  the last weekend in June,1969.)On this June weekend in the years following Stonewall celebrations of Gay Pride have taken place throughout the nation and much of the world.World history is full of the names of famous people reputed or factually known to be homosexual men or lesbian women.Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-89),daughter of the illustrious King Gustavus Adolphus,was a leading female intellectual of her time,and a documented patroness of opera.She has long been reputed to have been a lesbian.In observance of Gay Pride weekend,2012,I proudly present Jacopo Foroni's "Historical-Lyrical Drama" Cristina,Regina di Svezia (1848).The composer (1825-58) fled revolutionary upheaval in Milan for employment with an Italian opera company in Stockholm.Wouldn't you know,his operatic treatment of the queen's life has a ficticious male love interest.Here she's a victim of unrequited love for her court favorite,much as in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda.Foroni's opera received its world premiere recording under the Swedish Sterling label on two compact discs in 2010. Tobias Ringborg conducted the Goteborg Opera Orchestra and Chorus with an all-Swedish cast of dramatic singers.The recording was made in the hall of Vadstena Castle,where Queen Christina herself once witnessed opera performances.  

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WWUH can be heard on the following stations at various times throughout the day.

WWEB, 89.9 MHz, Choate Rosemary Hall Foundation, Wallingford, CT. (Time varies each day)

WDJW, 89.7 MHz, Somers High School, Somers, CT. (6am - 12 M)

WAPJ, 89.9 MHz, Nutmeg Conservatory, Torrington, CT. (times vary throughout the day

VOLUNTEER STAFF

McNall Allison, Greg Banks, Keith Barrett, Larry & Faith Bilansky, Bart Bozzi, Steve Brewer, Keith Brown, David Buddington, Brian Burness, Peter Carbone, Michael Carroll, Bob Celmer, Mark Channon, Monica Chaudhary, Jim Christensen, Deborah Conklin, Dave Cyr, Mark DeLorenzo, Mike DeRosa, Scott Deshefy, Steve Dieterich, Michael Dolan, Kenneth Dowst, Mary Dowst, Bobby Gomes, Brian Grosjean, Susan Forbes Hansen, Sam Hatch, Eugene Hazanov, Gilberto Heredia, John Holder, Joan Holiday, Harvey Jassem, Wayne Jones, Brandon Kampe, Bruce Kampe, Kevin Lamkins, Chris Larson, Gregory Laxer, Pete LeBlanc, Gary Levin, Rohan Long,  Will Mackey, Tony Magno, Doug Maine, Chris Marti, Mike Marti, Walter Mayo, Rob McGuire, Ed McKeon, Bill Measom, Marsha & Jim Meehan, Peter Michaelson, Phillip Mitchell , Susan Mullis, Chuck Obuchowski, Kevin O'Toole, Priscilla Parillo, Stephen Petke, Keri Prevost, John Prytko, John Ramsey, Henrique Ribeiro, Mark Rinas, Maurice Robertson, Peter Rost, Dave Rozza, Joe Rush, Mark Santini, David Schoenfeld, Dane Scozzari, Sam Scozzari, John Scott, Alan St. Laurent, Doug Sturbens, Andy Taylor, Steve Theaker, Dwight Thurston, Rob Turner, Rob Tyrka, Aldo Veronesoni, Robert Walsh, Lloyd Weir, Andy Zeldin.

HOW TO REACH US

Studio Line: (860) 768-4701

Office: (860) 768-4703

Music Department: (860) 768-4725

Listener Line: (860) 768-5913

WWUH Fax: (860) 768-5701

WWUH E-Mail Address: wwuh@ hartford.edu

WWUH available on the WWW via RealAudio &/or Windows Media

Web page and RealAudio can be found at: http://wwuh.org

WWUH, 200 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford, CT. 06117

Honorary Board of Directors:

Clark Smidt, Phillip Cabot, Judy Corcoran, Michael Cummings, Mel Yates, Mimi Spillane, Walter Miskin, Steve Nichols, Patty Kurlychek, Dale Maine, Jack Parmele, Rob Rosenthal.

ADVISORS:

Charlie Allen, Larry Titus, Dave Nagel.

Accent on Jazz - "The sounds of surprise," from the great African-American tradition of improvised music. Tuesday-Friday 9:00pm-midnight.

All Night Show - Alternative, progressive music.  Stay up late and FIND OUT!  Every night 3:00-6:00am.

Alternative Radio - Interviews and speeches from alternative sources and alternative information, produced by David Barsamian. Monday 12 noon-1:00pm.

Ambience - Music that blends electronic and acoustic styles, borrowing from many cultures, from dream rock, to deep space, quiet contemplation and ambient dance. Sunday 9:00am-1:00pm.

Blue Monday - The world of blues from country to R&B.  Monday 9:00pm-midnight.

Carosello Musicale Italiano - Italian music and news.  Saturday 5:00pm-7:00pm.

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Counterspin - Learn how to talk back to your radio and TV! Critical views of mainstream media, produced by Fairness and Accuracy in Media (F.A.I.R.). Tuesday 12:30pm-1:00pm.

Cultura E Vida - Portuguese programming. Saturday 7:00pm-9:00pm.

Culture Dogs - A look at contemporary media, movies, videos, etc. Sunday 8:00pm - 9:00pm

Evening Classics - Classical music by composers from Albinoini to Zelenka, styles ranging from Gregorian Chant to the modern twentieth century.  Weekdays 4:00pm-7:30/8:00pm.

Explorations - Every week Dr. Michio Kaku gives us new insight into the world of science.  Sunday 4:30pm-5:00pm.

FM on Toast - A wide variety of acoustic music ranging from folk to bluegrass. Sunday and weekdays 6:00am-9:00am.

Free Speech Radio: A daily (Mon - Fri) news program with alternative sources from around the world.Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 8:00-8:30pm, Thursday at 7:30pm and Friday at 7:00pm.

Gay Spirit - Greater Hartford's only gay news program featuring contemporary issues, music, and special guests.  Thursday 8:30pm-9:00pm.

Geetanjali -. Geetanjali plays a variety of music from the subcontinent -classical, contemporary, devotional and Bollywood music. The show'shosts provide narrative both in English and Hindi. Friday from 7:30pm - 9:00pm

Gothic Blimp Works - Alternative rock music including pop, progressive, experimental, reggae, punk, urban, blues...and more.  Every night midnight-3:00am.

Greatest Show From Earth - Esoteric space rock from psychedelic to progressive, with a side of electronics.  Need we

say more?  Broadcast via the T.E.L./T.A.N. V27X Transfleet Repeater Probe, the last analog frontier. Sunday 9:00pm-midnight.

Making Contact - A program about activists and social change.  Tuesday 8:30pm

Morning Jazz - Music from diverse aspects of the jazz tradition from the big bands to fusion to avant-garde. Weekdays 9:00am-Noon.

New Focus - Alternative news and views presented by Mike DeRosa.  Friday 12N-12:30pm. And Wednesday at 8:30pm.

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New World Notes - New perspectives on American Government, foreigh policy, media and culture in a variety of genres, produced by Ken Dowst.  Tuesday 12noon.

911 Wake Up Call - Exploring the issues surrounding the 911 attacks.  Thursday 12:30pm

Rock 'N Roll Memory Machine - The Hartford Courant calls it the best oldies show in the area.  Memories, music and trivia from the golden days of rock 'n roll.  Sunday 6:00pm-8:00pm.

Saturday Morning Polka Madness - Polkas! Saturday 6:00am-9:00am, requests welcome

Soapbox - Interviews with progressive authors and activists, host Rob Tyrka. Thursday 12:00noon-12:30pm.

Street Corner Serenade - Music from the '50's "do-wop" era, and more. Saturday 1:00pm-3:00pm.

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Selections from the Operatic repertory ranging from Baroque to twentieth century. Sunday 1:00pm-4:30pm.

Super Sabado -Salsa - from '70's classics to current faves - and greetings, in Spanish. Saturday 3:00-5:00pm.

Synthesis - Alternative rock from all genres featuring new releases, rarities, imports, and international artists.  Including electronic, dance, fusion, funk, pop, reggae, experimental...... Weekdays 1:00pm-4:00pm.

Tevynes Garsai - Lithuanian programming. Sunday 5:00pm-6:00pm.

This Way Out - The international gay and lesbian news magazine.  Thursday 8:00pm-8:30pm.

TUC Radio - From San Francisco: a show about the global village and the global pillage.  Friday at 12:30pm.

UH Radio Bluegrass - The best of bluegrass, with occasional live performances by area bluegrass musicians.  Saturday 9:00am-1:00pm.

Voices of our World - Views from the 2nd and 3rd world on life in the real world.  Monday at 8:30pm.

West Indian Rhythms - Reggae, soca and more from Jamaica, T & T and beyond. Saturday 9:00pm-12midnight.