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Music

Deconstructing Figaro

It's the most famous aria in the world. Everybody knows it - but not everybody knows what it's about. So we called in the experts from the Minnesota Opera's production of The Barber of Seville. Listen to baritone Ryan Taylor and conductor Emmanuel Plasson as they join MPR's John Birge to deconstruct Figaro.

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The St. Matthew Passion

Sometime in the Middle Ages, Christian churches began observing Holy Week by retelling the story of Christ's crucifixion in music. Those beginnings were simple—Bible verses set to simple chant melodies—but eventually they would culminate in one of the most ambitious musical compositions of all time. When J. S. Bach came to write his St. Matthew Passion in the 1720s, the passion, as a musical form, had grown to allow orchestra, choirs, and non-scriptural choruses and arias. But even by the standard of the Baroque passion, the Passion According to St. Matthew is exceptional for its musical richness and its grand scope.

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Sound Irish, 2001

Sounds Irish features music by and conversation with some of Ireland's most prominent classical artists and ensembles, including James Galway, two harp players (Minnesota's Ann Heymann and Clíona Doris of County Down) in studio sessions, singer Caitríona O'Leary, remembering composer Joan Trimble and more.

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Instrumental Women

Female musicians in the United States have gone from playing piano in their families' drawing rooms during the early 20th century to conducting or composing for some of the country's most renowned orchestras today. But it hasn't been an easy road to travel. Women who have faced incidents of prejudice in their careers as musicians recount the hurdles they've had to overcome in Instrumental Women—a two-hour radio special that celebrates women's contributions to 20th century classical music.

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What's in a Holiday Song? A Carol-ful Examination

With the season of carols upon us, and our own Festival of Carols right around the corner, MPR asks VocalEssence Series Artistic Director (and annual Welcome Christmas! Carol Contest judge) Philip Brunelle to educate us on the sounds of Christmas.

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Copland: 10 x 10

Over the years, Aaron Copland has been hailed as the quintessential American composer by everyone from Leonard Bernstein, who said, "He's the best we've got," to director Spike Lee, who paid musical tribute to Copland in his films. November 2000 marks the centenary of his birth - 100 years of Copland. To mark the occasion, we've come up with 10 nuggets about 10 aspects of the composer - 100 audio clips, anecdotes, quotes, and more.

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Giving Thanks, 2000

Like your Thanksgiving Day feast, Giving Thanks combines traditional fare with unexpected delights. For Thanksgiving 2000, we've invited some wonderful new guests to the program, including Studs Terkel, Tom Bodett, Lynne Rossetto-Kasper, Donald Hall, Bill Holm, and Ellen Kushner In addition to Garrison Keillor and Bill Moyers, a rare recording of Charles Laughton returns to Giving Thanks. His spellbinding story connects his personal discovery of Chartres Cathedral with an excerpt from Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums and the 104th Psalm. It's a moving and powerful tale, giving thanks for the discovery that art connects us all to the creative spirit, offering a beautiful focus for the program and the day.

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Classical Ghastlies

Can you recommend some pieces of Halloween music? Some real scary ones? And so in that spirit, from the world of classical music, we bring you a passel of quirky, ghoulish and upsetting lore about the people who created it. But be warned. There are no peeled grapes here. Everything you will read here is, as far as can be ascertained, quite true. If you prefer to think of Beethoven as a master musician who made important advances in the treatment of symphonic form, you may want to turn back at this point. But if you're curious who got hold of his skull in 1888. . . .

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Erik Satie: Springtime in Paris

The cultural rebelliousness lit by Jean Cocteau and driven by Erik Satie spawned the next batch of eccentrics from which Les Six, a new musical avant-garde led by Satie and consisting of Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Louis Durey, Germaine Tailleferre, and Georges Auric, was born. Many of their early works were good-naturedly Dadaist and make witty use of quotation and parody, popular music-hall style as well as jazz - a self-consciously simple style reacting against both Romanticism and Impressionism.

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Sound Irish, 2000

Sounds Irish features a sampling of Ireland's prominent classical artists and ensembles, presenting music by the National Symphony of Ireland, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, pianist John O'Conor, the RTE Vanbrugh String Quartet, choral phenomenon Anúna, and composer/pianist Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin. Listeners will also enjoy host Tom Crann's conversations with several of the musicians.

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