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WWUH Classical Programming
January 2026
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… Tuesdays 7:00-8:00 pm
Thursday 1st
Lodyzhensky: The Fleeting Dreams Have Passed; Chopin: Waltz No. 6 in D Flat Major Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute Waltz’; Ferrata: 2 Studies of Chopin's Valse Op. 64 No. 1; Kalinnikov: Symphony No. 1 in g minor; Goldman: Chimes of Liberty, On the Mall; Diggle: Twilight Reverie; Jacobson: Carousal; Rodrigo: 3 Viejos Aires de Danza.
Friday 2nd
Music of Michael Tippett, Karl Goldmark & Glenn Gould
Sunday 4th
Tippett, New Year, Cuomo,Savage Winter
Monday 5th
Giacomo Puccini: Norma Overture ; Giacomo Puccini: La Boheme Act 1; Juan Crisistomo Arriagaa: Symphony # 2; Papae Marcelli: Missa; Giovani Pierluigi de Palestrina:.String Quartet # 1 in D Minor, Credo
Tuesday 6th
The New Seasons - Tippet: Crown of the Year; Ives: New England Holiday’s Symphony; Vivaldi/Kerschek: The New Four Seasons; Crumb: Makrokosmos II: Twelve Fantasy Pieces After the Zodiac
Drake’s Village Brass Band - Matilda Lloyd Trumpet – Fantasia: Works for Trumpet and Organ
Wednesday 7th
Host's Choice
Thursday 8th
Thalberg: Piano Concerto in f minor Op. 5; Weinberger: Schwanda - Polka and Fugue; Piatti: Rimembranze del Trovatore di Verdi Op. 20; Mason: Joy to the World, Nearer My God to Thee; Nielsen: Paraphrase on 'Nearer My God to Thee' FS 63; Beethoven: Piano Trio No. 7 in B Flat Major Op. 97 'Archduke'; Gilles: Requiem: Agnus Dei; Reggio: Sonata No. 3 in D Major for Lute & Baroque Harp
Friday 9th
Max Roach goes classical!
Sunday 11th
Verdi, La Forza del Destino
Monday 12th
Summer night in Madrid, fantasia on Spanish Themes; Jota Aragonesa: Spanish Overture; Mikhail Glinka : Abdante Cantabileand rondo in D minor; Fanny Mendesohn: Piano Trio opus 11
Tuesday 13th
Marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day – Bonds: Three Dream Portraits; Dett: In the Bottoms; Price: Violin Concerto; Ellington: New World a-Comin’; Schwantner: New Morning for the World: Daybreak of Freedom; Hailstork: Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed: In Memoriam Martin Luther King J. 1929-1968; Walker: Trombone Concerto; Ellington: The River
Drake’s Village Brass Band – The Great American Main Street Band- Silk and Rags
Wednesday 14th
Luigi Cherubini: Les abencérages, ou L'étendard de Grenade: Overture; Ignaz Moscheles: Souvenirs d'Irlande, Op. 69 for Piano and Orchestra; Joseph Weigl: L' Imboscata: Dille che in lei rispetto; Louis Spohr: Symphony No. 9 in B Minor, Op. 143, "Die Jahreszeiten" (The Seasons); Giacomo Meyerbeer: L'étoile du nord: Overture; Giacomo Meyerbeer: L'étoile du nord, Act III: Quel trouble affreux regne en son Coeur; Giacomo Meyerbeer: L'étoile du nord, Act III: C'est bien lui … La la la air chéri!; Robert Schumann: Myrthen, Op. 25: No. 1. Widmung (arr. for oboe and piano); John Thomas: Duet on Themes from Norma for Harp and Piano (after V. Bellini); Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Suite No. 4 in G Major, Op. 61, "Mozartiana"; Adolf von Henselt: 12 Études caractéristiques, Op. 2: No. 10 in E Minor, "Comme le ruisseau dans la mer se répand, ainsi, ma chère, mon cœur t'attend"; Reynaldo Hahn: Mélodies inédites: Nos. 1 and 2; Srul Irving Glick: Suite Hébraïque No. 6 (arr. for oboe and piano); Franco Alfano: Piano Quintet in A-Flat Major; Richard Wagner: Rienzi: Overture (Evening Concert – Early Start); Giuseppe Martucci: Theme and Variations, Op. 58 (arr. for piano and orchestra); Eugen d’Albert: Tiefland: Intermezzo; Lenárd, Ondrej; Carl Nielsen: Symphony No. 2, Op. 16, FS 29, "The 4 Temperaments"
Thursday 15th
Aldrich: Out of the Deep, Suite; Muller-Hermann: Symphonic Fantasy Op. 25; Novello: We'll Gather Lilacs, Keep the Home Fires Burning; Siegmeister: Western Suite; Kernis: Musica Celestis; Saint-Saëns: Suite in D Major for Orchestra, Op. 49.
Friday 16th
Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King
Sunday 18th
Mussorgsky, Boris Godunov
Monday 19th
Samuel Barbe: Violin Concerto opus 14r; Gabriel Faure :In Paradisum,; Dimitryi Shostakovich: Piano Concerto # 2 in F minor Opus 103; Giovani Batista Piorgolesi: Stabat Mater Dolorosa
Tuesday 20th
The Seasons II – Tabakova: Sun Triptych; Zaimont: Calendar Set; Milhaud: The Seasons; Noskowski: Symphony #3 From Spring to Spring
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Brass Concertos – Tüür: Symphony #10 “Aeris” for Horn Quartet and Orchestra; Warnaar: Cornet Concerto
Wednesday 21st
Host's Choice
Thursday 22d
Collasse: Achille et Polyxène (excerpts); Höckh: Violin Sonata; Riepel: Violin Sonata in C Major; Balbastre: Sonata in F Major "Coucou", Marche des marseillais et l'air Ça ira; Righini: Serenata; Pavesi: Symphony in B-Flat Major; Zvonar: Čechy krásné Čechy mé; Tournemire: Improvisation sur le Te Deum; Jessel: Parade of the Tin Soldiers; Milford: Miniature Concerto in G Major Op. 35 for String Orchestra; Dutilleux: Sarabande et Cortège.
Friday 23d
Music of Rutland Boughton
Sunday 25th
Graun, Montezuma
Monday 26th
Francis Poulenc: Piano Concerto in C sharp minor; Milly Blakirev:: Oriental Fantasy Islamey; Alexandre Scriabin: 24 Preludes 24 Preludes 24 Preludes: Joseph Hayden: Cello Concerto # 2 in D major
Tuesday 27th
Mahler: Symphony #9 (on period instruments); Villa-Lobos: String Quartet #5
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Brass Concertos – Corea: Trombone Concerto; Higdon: Low Brass Concerto
Wednesday 28th
Host's Choice
Thursday 29th
Kolb: Certamen Aonium; Bonno: Flute Concerto in G Major; Auber: Overtures; Delius: Florida Suite; Bree: Allegro for Four String Quartets; Cowen: Concertstück; Tajcevic: Seven Balkan Dances; Wagenseil: Symphony in D Major Op. 3 No. 1 WV 374; Brian: The Tinker's Wedding (Comedy Overture No. 2); Lopez-Chavarri y Marco: El Viejo Castillo Moro; Lach: 9 Lyrische Stücke, Op. 23: No. 4. Barcarole; Nielsen: Romance, Op. 20.
Friday 30th
A ballet score that is in no way an important addition to the corpus of ballet music, but deserved a better staging than the one given by New York City Ballet
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SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "lyric theater" program
with Keith Brown
Programming for January 2026
SUNDAY JANUARY 4th
Tippett, New Year, Cuomo, Savage Winter Sir Michael Tippett (1905-98) was one of the central figures in twentieth century British music. His breakthrough work to fame, the oratorio A Child of Our Time (1944) I have featured at the beginning of the year at least twice before, and the opera A Midsummer Marriage (1955) I have aired around the time of the Summer solstice. Tippett wrote six operas over his long career as a composer. New Year (1989) was the last one. Houston Grand Opera premiered it and in 2024 it received its world premiere recording in Glasgow, Scotland. Martyn Brabbins conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers, with six vocal soloists, plus a narrator outside the action. The singing cast is split into groups of three, and the action of the opera proceeds "From Somewhere and Today" in its first act, to "Nowhere and Tomorrow" in the second. The second act in particular is a sci-fi fantasy involving space travel, a computer wizard named Merlin and a Rastafarian bro'. The opera ends with a distant outcry for "One Humanity, One Justice!"
Franz Schubert's immortal song cycle Winterreise (1827) is another work I have presented, appropriately enough, in the deep Midwinter month. That same "winter journey", with the German language poems of Wilhelm Mueller in English translation, and in their same sequence of song settings, has been taken up by a contemporary American composer, Douglas J. Cuomo (b. 1958). He has a Connecticut connection through his musical education at Wesleyan University and UConn. He has composed a great deal for theater, film and TV. (He wrote the theme music for Sex and the City, for instance.) His opera/oratorio Arjuna's Dilemma (2008) takes its text from ancient Hindu scripture. I broadcast it on the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend, September 2, 2012. Cuomo's music for his own Savage Winter song cycle (2017) doesn't sound anything like Schubert's musical settings, except for one brief reference in the very last song "The Hurdy-Gurdy Player." The translations by Richard Wigmore Cuomo has slightly tweaked here and there for his own compositional purposes. A longtime musical collaborator Tony Boutte is the vocalist. Cuomo himself accompanies him on guitars or organ. Cuomo also provides the electronics, and there's a part for a trumpet player,too. Savage Winter was released on a single Albany Records compact disc in 2O24.
SUNDAY JANUARY 11th
Verdi, La Forza del Destino It was almost exactly one year ago that I presented a historic recording of Verdi's La Traviata starring Connecticut's own Rosa Ponselle,her voice captured for posterity live in performance at the Met in 1935. From the same "Immortal Performances" series comes Verdi's La Forza del Destino (1862/rev.'69), as broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, January 23, 1943. Ponselle was not in the cast for this Met production. (She debuted at the Met in Forza in the role of Leonora in 1918, and had already retired from the stage, quite suddenly, in 1937.) Other distinguished colleagues of hers took part in this staging of La Forza: Rumanian soprano Stella Roman as Donna Leonora, tenor Frederic Jagel as Don Alvaro and baritone Lawrence Tibbett as Don Carlo. Italian basso Salvatore Baccaloni, better known to posterity for his comic roles, here took the role of Friar Melitone. Not to forget Baccaloni's countryman Ezio Pinza, the dramatic basso as the Abbott Guardiano. The CEDAR process was applied in the audio enhancement of the original live electric monaural sound, eliminating practically all surface noise in transfer to three compact discs. Bruno Walter, a famous conductor not well known for conducting opera, is on the podium. The radio broadcast commentary that was included on these discs is not by Milton Cross, as one might expect. Curiously. it's in Spanish language, and I will eliminate it in my own broadcast today. Sit back and savor with your ears these voices from a period that many now consider to be the Golden Age of opera singing.
SUNDAY JANUARY 18th
Mussorgski, Boris Godunov This was one of the first Russian operas I ever broadcast after I assumed the Sunday afternoon timeslot in 1982. The Angel/EMI LP issue of the opera, conducted by Jerzy Semkov, had the Finnish bass/baritone Martti Talvela in the title role. This Boris G went over the air on a Winter Sunday in 1983. Ever since then I have featured this opera on a Winter Sunday in January. I regard Modest Mussorgski's Boris Godunov (1874) as the single greatest operatic tragedy of the nineteenth century. The tragedy operates on two levels. It's the national tragedy of the Russian people, an operatic panorama of a period of Russian history in its time of troubles before the Romanov dynasty came to power in 1613. It's also the story of a usurper to power- a character study of an individual wracked by guilt. A number of distinguished deep-voiced male singers have essayed the tragic role of the troubled Boris. There was, of course, the native Russian Feodor Chaliapin (1873-1938), perhaps the most distinguished of them all. The "clock scene" and other excerpts from the opera (recorded in acoustic or early electric sound, 1911-31) featuring Chaliapin's voice have gone over the air in times past. The Bulgarian basso Nicolai Ghiaurov, the Finnish bass Martti Talvela and the Italian baritone Ruggero Raimondi have also been heard in their own individual interpretations of the role in complete recordings of this opera as broadcast on Sundays in January of 1983, 1991, '93 and '95. The Ukrainian Mark Reizen (1895-1992) was the preeminent bass singer of the Soviet era. He was a splendid Boris in the electric recording made in the USSR in 1948. Nikolai Golovanov directs the cast, Chorus and Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow. This historic recording of Boris Godunov was issued on compact disc in digitally upgraded sound through the Italian Lyrica label in 1998. You'll hear Reizen in the version of the opera prepared by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
SUNDAY JANUARY 25th
Graun, Montezuma This is one of the most unusual operas of the eighteenth century. Carl Heinrich Graun (1701-59) was primarily a composer of operas at the court of King Frederick "The Great" of Prussia at Berlin. The king himself provided the libretto of Montezuma. It was the most politically radical operatic text of its time. Frederick was entirely in sympathy with the conquered Aztecs and their hapless leader. The king also shows an unashamedly anti-Christian bias. Montezuma appears never to have been performed anywhere outside of Prussia, yet the opera made its mark on musical posterity. Its score was published in 1904, long before the modern revivalist interest in the baroque. Excerpts from it were set forth on a Decca LP circa 1968. The 1992 Capriccio CD recording is the world premiere of the complete opera on disc. David Johnson wrote favorably about the recording in the April/May, 1993 number of Fanfare magazine. He finds a few faults with the singing cast (mostly Latin American or Spanish sopranos), but concludes that, all in all,"...this Montezuma belongs in the collection of all adventurers in the byways of opera." Unlike his contemporary J.S. Bach, Graun was a musical progressive. His score for Montezuma prefigures many aspects of the "reform operas" of Gluck. The dacapo arias have been streamlined and the recitatives are very sensitively set. Capriccio has given Graun's magnum opus the best possible recorded treatment. The Deutsche Kammerakademie, says David Johnson, is an excellent chamber orchestra. (It is, however, not a period instrument ensemble.) All singers and players are under the sure-handed direction of Johannes Goritzki. I broadcast these same Capriccio CD's on three previous occasions: on Sunday, June 2, 2013, and before that on Sunday, September 25, 2005, and initially on Sunday, February 12, 1995.
keithsbrown1948@gmail.com
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