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WWUH Classical Programming
July 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
Week 1 · July 1–5
Wednesday, July 1
– Host's choice
Thursday, July 2
– Speer: Sonatas
– Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice – Overture, Dance of the Furies, Dance of the Blessed Spirits
– Holst: The Planets Op. 32
– Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor Op. 47
– Suppé: Die schöne Galathée – Overture
Friday, July 3
– Celebrating Independence Day with music about America
Sunday, July 5
– Bernstein: Wonderful Town
– DiPietro & Bryan: Memphis
Week 2 · July 6–12
Monday, July 6
– Host's choice
Tuesday, July 7
– America 250 – Boyer: Rhapsody in Red, White and Blue
– Cowell: American Melting Pot
– Foster Songs
– Gould: American Ballads
Drake's Village Brass Band: U.S. Coast Guard Band – This Is the Bicentennial
Wednesday, July 8
– Host's choice
Thursday, July 9
– Platti: Flute Sonata in G Major Op. 3 No. 6
– Gauntlett: Jesus Lives!; Once in Royal David's City
– Baermann: Clarinet Quintet No. 3 in E-flat Major Op. 23
– Respighi: Pines of Rome
– Diamond: Symphony No. 4
Friday, July 10
– Celebrating the sea for Marine Week
Sunday, July 12
– Grétry: La Caravane du Caire
Week 3 · July 13–19
Monday, July 13
– Host's choice
Tuesday, July 14
– Trio America Volume 1 – Reale and Persichetti
– Barbara Hannigan: American Dream? – Gershwin, Copland and Rodgers
– Min Kwon: America/Beautiful 6
Drake's Village Brass Band: Summit Brass – Episodes
Wednesday, July 15
– Host's choice
Thursday, July 16
– Ysaÿe: Sonata for Solo Violin in D minor Op. 27 No. 3 "Ballade"
– Petrassi: Partita
– Mascitti: Concerto in A Major Op. 7 No. 4
– Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor Op. 25
– Wagner: Götterdämmerung – Orchestral Medley
Friday, July 17
– Tuesday was "National Nude Day"
Sunday, July 19
– Bizet: Carmen
Week 4 · July 20–26
Monday, July 20
– Host's choice
Tuesday, July 21
– Yo-Yo Ma: The New York Album – Albert, Bloch, Bartók
– American Voices Volume 1 – Hanson, Harris and Thompson
– Min Kwon: America/Beautiful 7
– Grainger: Tribute to Foster
Drake's Village Brass Band: Empire Brass – American Brass Band Journal
Wednesday, July 22
– Host's choice
Thursday, July 23
– Berwald: Symphony No. 3 in C Major "Sinfonie singulière"
– Hol: Symphony No. 3 in B-flat Major Op. 101
– Bird: Suite in D Major for Ten Winds
– Cilea: L'Arlesiana – È la solita storia "Lamento di Federico"
– Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur – Io son l'umile ancella; La dolcissima effigie; Act II Intermezzo
Friday, July 24
– Strings without the violin family
Sunday, July 26
– Sullivan: The Beauty Stone
Week 5 · July 27–31
Monday, July 27
– Host's choice
Tuesday, July 28
– Tuesday Night at the Movies – Thomson: The Plow That Broke the Plains
– Herrmann: Williamsburg – The Story of a Patriot
– Williams: Lincoln
– Bernstein: On the Waterfront
Drake's Village Brass Band: USAF Heritage of America Band – An American Patrol
Wednesday, July 29
– Host's choice
Thursday, July 30
– Scarmolin: 3 Miniatures
– Rajter: Pozsonyi Majalis (Rag-Day) Suite
– Classical Comforts – Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major Op. 68 "Pastoral" – Movement II
– Handel: Rinaldo – Lascia ch'io pianga
– Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A Major K. 622 – Adagio
– Chopin: Nocturne in E-flat Major Op. 9 No. 2
– Dvořák: Symphony No. 9 in E minor Op. 95 "From the New World" – Largo
– Bernstein: West Side Story – Somewhere
– Verdi: Nabucco – Va, Pensiero
Friday, July 31
– Bluegrass rides the train as we celebrate Podunk Bluegrass Festival time
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SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "lyric theater" program
with Keith Brown
Programming for July 2026
SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "Lyric Theater" program
with Keith Brown
SUNDAY JULY 5TH Bernstein, Wonderful Town, DiPietro & Bryan, Memphis American lyric theater music is absolutely a must for the Sunday of the Independence Day holiday weekend. Leonard Bernstein (1918-93) is the colossus of the American lyric theater in the mid twentieth century. His West Side Story (1957) is a veritable monument of the American theatrical genre. Some think it's the "Great American Opera" for all time. Selections from West Side Story always get programmed into Fourth of July holiday concerts. Runner-up to it in repute might be Bernstein's On The Town (1944), his lyric theater tribute to New York City as it was at mid century- a classic era in the city's cultural history. Much lesser known but still a classic of the genre is what might be considered the sequel to On the Town: that is, Wonderful Town (1953), Bernstein's ode to the funky Greenwich Village neighborhood of the city. The show opened at the Shubert Theater in New Haven, going on to Broadway in a production that ran for a respectable run of 559 performances. But thereafter-strangely- it disappeared. I broadcast the original cast recording of Wonderful Town, starring Rosalind Russell, exactly 34 years ago on this date. Wonderful Town was triumphantly revived in London in 1998 at the Royal Albert Hall, then recorded in EMI's Abbey Road studios. Sir Simon Rattle led the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. "Wonderful Town, wonderful recording," so says Fanfare magazine's reviewer Martin Anderson (Fanfare,Jan/Feb, 2000 issue.)
Nothing could be more unmistakeably American than the singing traditions of the Black American Gospel choir. Memphis (2010), with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by David Bryan, is a Gospel music musical, with a story of interracial love set in the segregated city of Memphis, Tennessee in the 1950's. It's based on the true story of the love between a white radio deejay Dewey Philips and a black singer Felicia Farrell. Listening to Memphis the musical you'll understand how Gospel music gave birth to soul and rock n'roll. Memphis won a Tony Award in 2010. The original Broadway cast recording of the Gospel musical was issued on compact disc in a special limited edition.
SUNDAY JULY 12TH Gretry, La Caravane du Caire This French opera-ballet by Andre-Modest Gretry (1741-1813) falls into the operatic sub-genre of the exotic "Turkish" opera so popular in the eighteenth century, the most famous example of which is undoubtedly Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio"(1782). Gretry's "Caravan to Cairo" was first presented before royalty at Fontainebleau Palace in 1783 and went on to entertain Parisian audiences the following year at the Academie Royale de Musique. It remained one of Gretry's most popular lyric stageworks, receiving nearly five hundred performances in revivals well into the earlier part of the nineteenth century. And no wonder! Like his highly successful fairytale opera Zemire et Azor (1771), his "Caravan" opera had a tuneful score with plenty of sprightly dance numbers. You heard Zemire et Azor for a second time on this program quite recently on Sunday, June 14th. Now listen to La Caravane as recorded in 1991 live in performance at Namur in Belgium in connection with the Wallonie Festival. (Gretry was a Walloon, born in Belgium in the nearby city of Liege.) The American conductor Marc Minkowski, a specialist in baroque repertoire, leads the period instrument players of the Ricercar Academy and the Chamber Choir of Namur. The vocal soloists are also specialists in eighteenth century vocal practice. The Ricercar record label released Gretry's La Caravane du Caire in 1991 on two compact discs. The second of these discs includes excerpts from Gretry's Le Jugement de Midas (1778), recorded at a different date and with different performing resources (Leonhardt/Herreweghe/La Petite Bande). The voice of bass Jules Bastin, however, is heard in both of these recordings.
SUNDAY JULY 19TH Bizet,Carmen Across the nation it's pops concert season, thinking of those large outdoor Summer evening music events that often culminate in fireworks displays. Any decent popular classics concert has got to have numbers from Georges Bizet's Carmen (1875), which is probably the single most popular opera of all time. The last previous time I broadcast this vintage Carmen recording was on July 1, 2012. New York's famous Metropolitan Opera delved into its audio archives and issued to the public a number of its historic airtapes of live Met performances. These radio broadcast reel-to-reels were digitally reprocessed for issue in compact disc format through Sony Classical in a special "Live from the Met" series. Carmen was taped live-in-performance in monaural sound on February 16, 1952. Soprano Rise Stevens stars as the tragic Gypsy girl, opposite tenor Richard Tucker as her paramour Don Jose. Fritz Reiner directs the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. The 1952 Met Carmen came out in Sony's "Met Opera" series on two CD's in 2011. I last presented this historic Carmen recording on Sunday, July 1, 2012.
SUNDAY JULY 26TH Sullivan, The Beauty Stone Normally this would be the Sunday in the Summer seasonal lineup that I reserve for one or another of the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) wrote much other lyric theater music both before and after his longtime collaboration with the wordsmith William Schwenk Gilbert (1836-1911). The closest thing to G & S minus the"G" might be Sullivan's The Beauty Stone. Following the considerable success of his English grand opera Ivanhoe,based on Sir Walter Scott's historical novel, in 1890, The Beauty Stone was a flop when it premiered at the home G & S venue, the Savoy Theatre, in 1897. Like Ivanhoe, it was a medieval romance for the lyric stage. The Beauty Stone is a light opera, to be sure, although not a comic one. Sullivan's music was as engaging as ever, but the book and lyrics by Pinero and Carr failed to hold the Savoy audiences' attention. This Sunday you can rediscover and appreciate once again the beauties of The Beauty Stone in its 2013 world premiere recording for Chandos records of the UK. The performing resources are virtually the same as in the Chandos recording of Ivanhoe that I aired on Sunday, April 28,2013. Rory MacDonald directs the BBC National Orchestra and National Chorus of Wales. Tenor Toby Spence was the hero in Ivanhoe. Here he's the knight Philip, Lord of Mirlemont. In this recording, so writes Fanfare magazine's reviewer Ronald E. Graemes,"...this is the best case that one could ever have hoped for on behalf of this neglected opera." (Fanfare,May/June, 2014.)
keithsbrown1948@gmail.com
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