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WWUH Classical Programming
August 2025
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
Friday 1st
Host’s choice as Fran again drives the train
Sunday 3d
Leo, L'Alidoro
Monday 4th
Canon And Gigue In D Pachelbel; Fisher Tull Sarabande & Gigue for Saxphone & Piano: II. Gigue (Allegro)
Tuesday 5th
Paragon Ragtime Orchestra – Cakewalk in the Sky; Copland: Billy The Kid Suite; Berlioz: Les nuits d’ete; Delius: A Song of Summer
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Detroit Concert Band - Virtuoso Soloists
Wednesday 6th
Theme: “Rome: a robe of more than glory” - Respighi, Pines of Rome;Jacques Ibert, Rome-Palerme from Escales; Khachaturian, “Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia” from Spartacus; Alfredo Casella, Concerto Romano; Mozart, La Clemenza di Tito (excerpts)
Thursday 7th
Litolff: Concerto Symphonique No. 4 in d minor Op. 102; Bantock: The Witch of Atlas Tone Poem for Orchestra No. 5; Lecuona: Danzas Cubanas; Frommel: Symphonic Prélude Op. 23; Husa: Serenade; Orbon: Danzas Sinfónicas; Tormis: 2 Estonian Lullabies; Overture No. 2; Mozart: Serenade in E-Flat Major No. 11 K. 375.
Friday 8th
Host’s choice as Fran drives the train one more time
Sunday 10th
Cimarosa, Le Astuzie Femminili
Monday 11th
Manuel de Falla El sombrero de tres picos / Part 2: Danza final (Jota); Esther Budiardjo Hungarian Dance 01 - G Minor, Allegro; Robert Schumann Symphony No .1 in B Flat Major, Op. 38 "Spring": 4. Allegro animato e grazioso
Tuesday 12th
Fun and Games – Bolling: Picnic Suite; Stravinsky: Jeu de Cartes Card Game; Bernstein: Jubilee Games – Concerto for Orchestra
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Black Dyke Band - Just for Fun
Wednesday 13th
Domenico Cimarosa: La baronessa Stramba: Overture; Arthur Benjamin: Oboe Concerto in C Minor (after Cimarosa's Keyboard Sonatas); Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: 3 German Dances, K. 605; William Shield: Rosina (excerpts): Act II: Light as thistledown moving; William Shield: Rosina (excerpts): Act I: When William at Eve; Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D Major, Hob.I:104, "London"; Gaetano Donizetti: Maria di Rohan: Overture; Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra; Gaetano Donizetti: Maria di Rohan, Act III: Parti, brev'ora … Bella e di sol vestita … Ogni moi bene in te sperai; Frans Josef Strauss: Originalfantasie, Op. 6 for Horn and Piano; Johan Kvandal: 3 Hymn Tunes, Op. 23b for Wind Ensemble; Gaetano Braga: Soiree a Naples; Franz Liszt: 6 Hungarian Rhapsodies, S359/R441: No. 6 in D Major, "Pesther Carneval"; Joachim Raff: Impromptu-valse, Op. 94;Amy Beach: Three Shakespeare Songs, Op. 37; Tomas Breton: 4 Spanish Pieces; LOM Piano Trio; Georges Bizet: Overture in A Major; (Evening Concert – Early Start)Walter Macfarren: Concertstuck in E Minor for Piano and Orchestra; Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Op. 42 (arr. A.K. Glazunov for violin and orchestra); George Whitfield Chadwick: Symphony No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 21.
Thursday14th
Hofmann: Flute Concerto in D Major; Åhlström: Piano Sonata in D Major; S.S. Wesley: Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace; Schubert: Heidenroslein, D. 257; Sinigaglia: 12 Variations on a Theme by Schubert Op. 19; Jarnefelt: Praeludium, Suite in E Flat Major; Jong: Flemish Rhapsody; Chopin: Waltz No. 6 in D Flat Major Op. 64 No. 1 'Minute Waltz'; Sorabji (Leon Dudley): Waltz (After Chopin's Waltz in D-Flat Major Op. 64 No. 1; Koetsier: Brass Quintet; Horner: Film Music.
Friday 15th
Belated Bluegrass
Sunday 17th
Johann Strauss, Furstin Ninetta
Monday 18th
Canon And Gigue In D Pachelbel; Fisher Tull Sarabande & Gigue for Saxphone & Piano: II. Gigue (Allegro); Fisher Tull Sarabande and Gigue: I. Sarabande (Andante) ; Tarrega:: Integral De Guitarra
Tuesday 19th
More Fun and Games – Bennett: Suite for Skip and Sadie; Crumb: Mundus Canis; Brubeck: They All Sang Yankee Doodle; Maw: American Games; Gillis: Symphony 5 ½ A Symphony for Fun; Bliss: Checkmate Ballet
Drake’s Village Brass Band - West Point Band - Music Under the Stars
Wednesday 20th
Theme: “21st Century Explorers” - Composer Interview: Ed Tyler, composer of An American Requiem; Ed Tyler, An American Requiem; Jonny Greenwood, Popcorn Superhet Receiver; Unsuk Chin, Cello Concerto; John Luther Adams, Become Ocean
Thursday 21st
Frohlich: Symphony in E Flat Major Op. 33; Loder: Studies Book 2 Nos. 1-4; Goldschmidt: A Tender Shoot; L. Boulanger: D'un matin de printemps, Nocturne; Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez; Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor, K. 466.
Friday 22d
Plane,Trains and Automobiles
Sunday 24th
Lehar, Schon Ist Die Welt
Monday 25th
Chopin: Berceuse in D-Flat Major, Op. 57 Decca Music Group; Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39 Antonín Dvořák; Piano Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545 "Sonata facile": Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Sonata for Flute and Harp Arnold Bax; Sonata No. 3 in G Major Henry Purcell; Pastorale in C Major (Version for Violin & Piano) Germaine Tailleferre; Symphony No. 31, Op. 292 Alan Hovhaness
Tuesday 26th
Tuesday Night at the Movies – Waxman: Sunset Boulevard; Silvestri: Back to the Future; Rozsa: The Jungle Book
Drake’s Village Brass Band – Black Dyke Band – Screen Blockbusters
Wednesday 27th
Host’s choice
Thursday 28th
Winter: Sinfonia Concertante in B-Flat Major, Octet; Macfarren: Concertstück in e minor; Dietrich: Cello Concerto in g minor Op. 32; Norman: Three Piano Pieces in Scherzo Form; Giordano: Fedora: Amor ti vieta; Fedora: Intermezzo Act 2; Andrea Chenier: Come un bel di di maggio; Andrea Chénier: La mamma morta; Eggen: Liti Kersti Suite: Bjorgulv the Fiddler; Maasalo: Joulun Kellot; Gurney: In Flanders, Severn Meadows, Down by the Salley Gardens.
Friday 29th
June was a bust; we were stuck in the Berkshires that day. So, we’ll do listener requests this month instead.
Sunday 31st
Host's Choice
Thursday 31st
Delius,The Magic Fountain
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SUNDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA
your "lyric theater" program
with Keith Brown
Programming for August 2025
SUNDAY AUGUST 3RD
Leo, L'Alidoro The origins of the Italian opera buffa can be traced to Naples in the 1730's, where three young progressive composers,Leonardo Vinci, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) were creating a new style of Neapolitan comic opera. Leonardo Leo's Amor Vuol Sofferanza ("Love Requires Suffering,' 1739) was enormously popular and was revived again and again in the mid eighteenth century. On Sunday, August 12,2001 I aired the world premiere Nuova Era CD release of this forward-looking buffa work. A recording of it was made in the course of the 1994 Valle d'Itria Festival. Leo built upon the international success of Amor Vuol Sofferanza with L'Alidoro (1740). Genarrantonio Federico, the librettist for "Love Requires Suffering", gave Leo the wordbook for L'Alidoro. He also provided Pergolesi with the libretto for his buffa masterpiece, the one-act comic intermezzo La Serva Padrona (1736). L'Alidoro follows the buffa operatic convention of disguise used for purposes of amorous intrigue. L'Alidoro, the commedia per musica in three acts, was recorded for the Italian Dynamic label. Antonio Fiorio conducts the Orchestra Barroca of the Capella della Pieta di Turchini, a period instrument ensemble based in Naples, for the staged production captured live in performance in 2008. Dynamic offered L'Alidoro to the public in 2010 on two silver discs. L'Alidoro was last broadcast on this program on Sunday, August 7, 2011.
SUNDAY AUGUST 10TH
Cimarosa, Le Astuzie Femminili The full flowering of the Italian opera buffa style came at the very end of the eighteenth century and the dawn of the nineteenth. Mozart's last buffa work for the lyric stage, Cosi Fan Tutte (1791) is one jewel of a specimen of the genre. So is Cimarosa's Il Matrimonia Segreto ("The Secret Marriage," 1792), heard on this show on the last Sunday in December of 2018. The prolific opera composer Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) was a specialist in the buffa genre. Most of his sixty operas are comic. "The Secret Marriage" was a big hit in Vienna just after Mozart's passing. The Austrian emperor Leopold liked it so much he commanded an encore performance on the very night of its premiere. Cimarosa went back to Naples thereafter, where Le Astuzie Femminili ("The Clever Girls," 1794) was first produced, also with success. It was revived at the 2022 Reate Festival near Rome- also quite a successful staging, and that production was recorded for the German cpo record label. Alessandro DeMarchi directs the period instrument players of the Theresia ensemble, with a six member singing cast. Of the cpo CD release Fanfare reviewer Bertil van Boer writes, "This is an outstanding production. It is musically exciting... "this recording brings out the sort of style for which Cimarosa is justly famous. It is a romp, a fully satisfying and enjoyable work...Highly recommended." (Fanfare,March/April, 2025 issue) I presume this is the world premiere of Le Astuzie Femminili on disc.
SUNDAY AUGUST 17TH
Johann Strauss, Furstin Ninetta The second half of the nineteenth century was the Golden Age of Viennese operetta. "The Waltz King" Johann Strauss, Jr. is known throughout the world as the composer of two enormous operetta hits of the era: Die Fledermaus (1874) and "The Gypsy Baron" (1889). Strauss wrote a total of sixteen operettas in the course of his long career. Many of them were successes as well. Furstin Ninetta ("Princess Ninetta," 1893) opened at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna and ran for 76 performances. It was well received by the public and critics alike, then went on to theaters throughout the Austrian empire. After 1905, however, it disappeared entirely from the stage. The setting is Naples, with the volcano Vesuvius smoking in the background. Crazy marriage complications and fears of highway robbery come along with crossdressing in the libretto Hugo Wittmann and Julius Bauer presented to Strauss. "The Waltz King" worked his usual magic on an absurd concoction of romantic carryings-on among the well-to-do of Austria and Russia. His score contains the well known "Pizzicato Polka". "Princess Ninetta" was revived in Stockholm, Sweden in 2007. The live recording of the operetta was released through the Naxos label on compact disc in 2009. A female Hungarian conductor, Valeria Csonyi directs the Swedish singers and players. The Naxos recording lacks spoken dialogue between the musical numbers, but then Strauss himself didn't think dialogue was necessary. Furstin Ninetta went over the air previously on this program on Sunday, August 16, 2009.
SUNDAY AUGUST 24TH
Lehar, Schon Ist Die Welt A Silver Age of Viennese operetta followed its Golden Age as the nineteenth century ended. "The Waltz King" died in 1899, by which time a whole new generation of central European composers would be carrying operetta forward into the early twentieth century. Only talking pictures in the 1920's and faschist repression in the 1930's would finally do operetta in. From the Silver Age came the later bittersweet, nostalgia-laden operettas of the Hungarian Franz Lehar, like "The Land of Smiles" (1929). Lehar wrote Schon Ist Die Welt ("It's A Wonderful World," 1930) especially for the voice of the superstar Austrian tenor Richard Tauber. Lehar salvaged music from an earlier production Endlich Allein (1914) for his "Beautiful World" remake. In updating the new stage work he required a particularly "modern" sound effect: the simulated radio broadcast of a news report that figures crucially in the plot. A ringing telephone and telephone conversations were later interpolated into the spoken dialogue. There is a1942 radio airtape of Schon Ist Die Welt, recorded complete with dialogue, with Lehar himself conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. After both Tauber and Lehar died in 1948, it was tenor Rudolf Schock who carried on the singing traditions of Viennese operetta. Schock took the leading romantic male role in a 1954 broadcast of Schon Ist die Welt over Bavarian Radio, Munich. Werner Schmidt-Boelke directed the Munich Radio Orchestra and Chorus. The monaural airtape was digitally upgraded for CD release through the Walhall Eternity series in 2006. Lehar's "It's A Wonderful World" last charmed your ears over WWUH on Sunday, August 24, 2008. Includes spoken dialogue in Garman.
SUNDAY AUGUST 31ST
Delius, The Magic Fountain The last Sunday in August I customarily reserve for broadcast one of the seven operas of Frederick Delius (1862-1934), who has been called "The English Debussy." I program them now because Delius' exquisite impressionistic style is so evocative of the lazy, hazy end of Summertime. Delius' second attempt at writing opera, The Magic Fountain (1895) never saw the stage in his lifetime. The English conductor Sir Thomas Beecham befriended Delius and championed his music. Beecham planned to have The Magic Fountain staged in 1953, but its actual premiere came over BBC Radio in 1977 without need of staging. Delius captures the spirit of Nature so well you can picture in your mind's eye the setting: the Everglades in the time of the Spanish conquistadores. In seeking the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life in South Florida a Spanish nobleman falls in love with a Native American princess. He dies for her sake by drinking from the fatal waters. Delius knew the scenery of the land of the story quite intimately. In his youth he spent time managing a small citrus plantation near Jacksonville. His deepest artistic inspirations go back to that place. The world premiere recording of Delius' The Magic Fountain heightens with environmental sound effects the balmy atmosphere the music has already created. Norman Del Mar leads the BBC Concert Orchestra, with vocal soloists. I have broadcast the 1985 BBC Artium CD release several times before in my long-ongoing cycles of Delius opera presentations on Sundays in August of 1987,'91, '99 and 2007, and yet again most recently on Sunday, August 26, 2018. Keep listening for a recording of Delius' choral masterpiece Seadrift (1904), a setting of the poetry of Walt Whitman.
keithsbrown1948@gmail.com
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