Repertoire Tips for Classical Music Radio Stations
Alonso Delarte
Published by Alonso Delarte at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Alonso Delarte
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This free eBook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please let them know where they may download an additional copy. If you're reading this book and did not download it yourself, then please return to Smashwords.com and obtain your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Table of Contents
Forgotten Gems from Famous Composers
What Else Did the One-Hit Wonders Write?
Repertoire Tips for Classical Music Radio Stations
It doesn't matter what your favorite genre of music is, you probably know what songs or tracks are played over and over again on certain radio stations. Around the turn of the millennium, you may have gotten sick of hearing the man who wanted a little bit of Erica by his side (and not the whole woman, for some strange reason). Or the girl who proclaimed to know what boys want and what boys like (why, her, of course). And even if you liked certain TV shows, it probably got tiresome to hear the woman who didn't want to wait for her life to be over, or the man who declared no one would bend or break him because he's "got faith of the heart."
But the repertoire for those popular genres is generally limited, spanning at most four or five decades. With classical music, you have four or five centuries' worth of music to choose from. And yet, it sometimes seems like there is a small subset of classical music that classical stations generally limit themselves to: the greatest hits of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky; the overtures of the most popular operas, maybe a few film cues.
I do of course know that "classical" is a convenient label that goes beyond the strict definition of "Classical" to also encompass the Baroque (such as Bach), the Romantic (such as Tchaikovsky) and the first half of the 20th Century (such as Vaughan Williams). More adventurous stations might also dare play music from the medieval era, the late 20th Century and maybe even from this century. One advantage of music prior to the 20th Century is that no royalties for the composers need be paid.
I have not set out to write a book about the business of music, but the impact of business on repertoire formation needs to be considered, at least briefly. We are moving away from the economy of mass production and towards the economy of the replicator. Yes, I am talking about that device depicted in science fiction fantasies such as Star Trek: The Next Generation.
A candy company, for example, might make a million rabbit-shaped chocolates but zero lobster-shaped chocolates. Why not? They would probably need to make at least a thousand lobster-shaped chocolates to justify the effort and expense of resetting the machinery. And then would there be enough customers to buy up a thousand lobster-shaped chocolates?
But once we are fully in the economy of the replicator, a candy company's ability to manufacture a million of the same candy will be irrelevant. They will instead be expected to provide a million combinations of shapes and flavors: one customer wants a mongoose-shaped milk chocolate while another for some reason wants a dozen dark chocolate tetrahedrons; both customers will be satisfied.
For music, thanks to technologies such as the CD-R, the Internet and the iPod, the economy of the replicator is a reality. Who will want to download a Vivaldi Four Seasons album if they already have one? However, classical FM radio stations will continue to be relevant in this era of YouTube and the podcast, but at the same time they will have to keep in mind the realities of the replicator economy.
Notice for example that both Sirius and XM Radio offer three different classical channels, with the same descriptions for each: "Opera/Classical Vocals," "Classical Pops" and "Traditional Classical." Presumably, the place for the Pachelbel Canon in D major (that piece they often play at weddings) would be the "Traditional Classical" station; that piece should come up on that station from time to time. But it should not come up every week, much less every day or every hour. Nor does it have to.
The classical repertoire might as well be infinite. Naturally, this presents somewhat of a barrier of entry for those interested in classical who don't know where to start. So what winds up happening with the famous composers is that neophytes gravitate towards the best-known works. Under the economy of the assembly line, it made sense to make thousands of copies of recordings of these best known works. But now with the economy of the replicator, more knowledgeable listeners want more than just the same parade of worn-out hits.
By no means am I suggesting that each piece of music should be played just once on your station and then never again. Some degree of repetition is necessary. What must be avoided is the "auto-complete" syndrome: that as soon as your announcer says the name of the composer, the listeners already know exactly which piece is going to be played.
Nor am I suggesting that the warhorses of the repertoire should no longer be played. Does your station have a request show? Something tells me that there will always be someone who requests the Pachelbel Canon in D major, no matter how much or how little your station schedules that particular piece. One thing I am suggesting, though, to do instead of those giveaways for the nth caller, is to give a prize to someone who calls in the most interesting request (the music has to exist, and be available on a commercial recording, of course).
Writing in Classical Music: The Listener's Companion, Davis writes that he and other classical radio DJs are often told "not too new, not too old, not too vocal, not too heavy." Given the breadth of the classical repertoire, it is actually quite easy to obey this dictum while at the same time wandering far away from the overplayed staples.
In compiling these tips, I am assuming that your classical station plays commercials, and must therefore not go more than 20 minutes without a commercial break, at least during peak listening hours. (I remember sometimes the old WQRS would play an entire Bruckner Symphony at night).
Besides my own compact disc collection, the Naxos Music Library and Amazon.com were immensely helpful in compiling this book. The IMSLP was also of great help. For the most part I won't be recommending any specific recording of a given piece, though there is some really good obscure stuff that has been recorded only once if at all.
This book is organized into four sections, with the composers in each section except the last arranged alphabetically. In the first section, I aim to uncover lesser known works by famous composers. In the second section, I investigate the entire oeuvre of some one-hit wonders and present some other works people might even grow to like more than the one hit. In the third section, I present only two or three works by some rather obscure composers I really enjoy and which I think your listeners might, too. The fourth section, on local composers, is of necessity rather short; most likely you don't live in metro Detroit, but at least I hope that what I write about metro Detroit composers encourages you to seek out the composers in your city or town.
I had thought about doing a chapter on flavors of the month like wunderkind Jay Greenberg but decided not to. Even for an e-book, the information would be outdated too quickly. All I will say about Greenberg for now is that perhaps with maturity he will write some music worth hearing more than once (I hope that does not sound like sour grapes from an older composer yet to have any success).
Many great composers have been left out, arbitrarily, it might seem. If there is one which you think a future edition of this book ought to cover, please don't hesitate to contact me to let me know about them. The time came for me to realize that if a classical radio station explored even a tenth of the suggestions given here, it would be enough to lead to a greater variety of music and many pleasant discoveries. And since this is an e-book, it is quite a simple matter to add more suggestions after the first publication.
Forgotten Gems from Famous Composers
If we were to compile a list of Beethoven's greatest hits during his lifetime, and another list of his greatest hits today, there would be some overlap between the two lists, but also a lot of works on one list but not the other. But of course Beethoven wrote more, a lot more, than what is listed on his greatest hits. Composers are sometimes surprised about which of their works become popular and which don't. Except of course the most avant-garde composers, who are perhaps not at all interested in writing for the general public. In this section, I will strive to give a more complete view of these composers' works than a list of greatest hits would give.
I will admit that in this section of the book, I have been somewhat liberal in the meaning of "famous composer." I have included composers who were famous in their lifetime but have become somewhat obscure, and composers who are better known for being the spouse, mentor or pupil of a more famous composer than they are for their own music.
John Adams
Perhaps the most famous of the American minimalists, John Adams, whose name reminds us of early American history, considers himself a "maximalist," making the most of minimum material. This means a style not as ascetic as Steve Reich and not as religious as Arvo Pärt. I wouldn't count Short Ride in a Fast Machine as a forgotten gem, but the truth is that I almost forgot to put Adams in this book at all; the track came up on my iTunes playlist of music that hasn't been played in a while. However, Tromba Lontana is probably the true forgotten gem.
John Adams is still very much active in this century. Fairly recently (in 2012), the Saint Lawrence String Quartet and the San Francisco Symphony premiered a new piece of his for string quartet and orchestra titled Absolute Jest, in which the composer takes bits and pieces from late Beethoven String Quartets and a few other Beethoven works to create a brand new composition.
Isaac Albéniz
"Asturias" from Suite Española is such an integral part of the guitar repertoire that all your listeners probably think the piece was in fact originally written for guitar, and if your station plays the version for piano, they will think that is the arrangement. Since Albéniz used guitar idioms in his piano piece, transcription to the guitar is rather easy. You might also consider the arrangement for violin once in a while.
Leroy Anderson
You know about "The Typewriter," "Bugler's Holiday," "Sleigh Ride," "Fiddle Faddle," etc. But did you know that Leroy Anderson wrote a Piano Concerto? The Finale of the Piano Concerto would make for a nice change of pace. Although, on the other hand, some classical radio stations take themselves so seriously that playing any Leroy Anderson would make for a change of pace.
Kurt Atterberg
In 1928, Kurt Atterberg won a prize of $10,000 for his Symphony No. 6 in C major, which then became known as the "Dollar" Symphony. That was back in the days when winning a composition contest actually meant something, and even money was more meaningful back then: Atterberg's prize would be worth about $133,800 as of 2012, and this is a result of inflation alone. But after World War II, Atterberg more or less fell off the radar, and for a while I seriously considered placing him in the category of lesser known composers.
Rather than the "Dollar" Symphony, I will be recommending Atterberg's very first, the Symphony No. 1 in B minor. The whole work is imbued with both lush melancholy and forthright energy. Although technically in three movements, it is in a way really in five movements, any of which can be reasonably excerpted. The Horn Concerto is also very much worth hearing.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
One of Johann Sebastian Bach's oldest sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was about as prolific as his father. We can roughly divide the large volume of keyboard music that C. P. E. wrote into two categories: for professional musicians and for amateurs. But alas, the "easy sonatas" may be too difficult for today's amateurs. Both categories of sonatas are played and recorded by professional pianists and are enjoyable listening.
But let's not forget C. P. E.'s orchestral and choral music. The Magnificat is magnificent.
Johann Christian Bach
After the death of Maria Barbara Bach, Johann Sebastian married Anna Magdalena, who bore him thirteen children. Of these, the most famous is perhaps Johann Christian, whose earliest musical instruction came from his father. Later on he was also taught by Carl Philipp Emanuel.
Along with Leopold Mozart and the Haydn brothers, Johann Christian Bach was an important influence on Wolfgang Amadeus. The Symphonies, or Grand Overtures, as they are sometimes called, have much in them that Mozart fans will like. In particular, check out the Symphony in G minor from his Opus 6 set, which strongly foreshadows both of Mozart's Symphonies in that key.
Johann Sebastian Bach
With a catalogue of more than a thousand compositions, there is plenty of Johann Sebastian to go around beyond the greatest hits. It is understandable that the Concerto in C major for 3 Harpsichords and Strings, BWV 1064, doesn't get played as often in concert as the Brandenburg Concertos, for, after all, even world-class orchestras probably only have one harpsichord on hand. But once it's recorded (and it has been recorded), it is available to radio stations to play as much as they want. It's a very nice piece, with the same rich melodiousness of the Brandenburg Concertos but different in its own way.
The Brandenburg Concertos should of course be played, and one way to spice up these pieces is by playing transcriptions. They have been transcribed for guitars, marching bands, even synthesizers.
P. D. Q. Bach
P. D. Q. was the twenty-first of Johann Sebastian's twenty children, the "last and least." According to Prof. Peter Schickele of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, P. D. Q. Bach's defining trait is "manic plagiarism." P. D. Q.'s manic plagiarism was so intense that not only did he steal from past and contemporary composers, he stole from future composers, with such forward-looking works as Classical Rap and Einstein on the Fritz.
Or the 1712 Overture, which has much in common with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. If you like those Saturday Night Live skits in which real celebrities confront their impersonators, you might get a kick out of having your DJs play sets containing both a piece by P. D. Q. Bach and the piece by the other composer which provided most of the purloined material, such as for example P. D. Q.'s Prelude and Fugue in C major from The Short-Tempered Clavier, and Johann Sebastian's Prelude and Fugue from The Well-Tempered Clavier.
The Minuet Militaire could very well be paired with the more serious Military Minuet by Antonio Salieri.
Oedipus Tex is quite hilarious, and although it is not as long as Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, is probably too long to play in its entirety at those hours of the day requiring frequent commercial breaks. But the Prologue, in which the chorus actually sings "T-R-A-G-E-D-Y," is suitable for excerpting. The album on which Oedipus Tex originally appeared, Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities on Telarc, also includes the Knock, Knock Cantata, of which the four songs aside from the Introduction and Conclusion may readily be played individually.
If there are any dumb pedants reading this, there is no need to answer any of their "Are you aware that..." questions.
Béla Bartók
One of the reasons that Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra feels a lot more overplayed than it actually is, is that a lot of flavor-of-the-month composers take it as a template for their own works: Wunderkind Jay Greenberg with his Fifth Symphony, Jennifer Higdon with her own Concerto for Orchestra, to name just two.
In this adulation of the Concerto for Orchestra, Bartók's three Piano Concertos have been largely ignored. Each is in three movements, lasting 20 to 30 minutes total; therefore, a single movement can be put on a 20-minute block. These have Bartók's intense rhythmic drive familiar to us from the Concerto for Orchestra without triggering that "not that again" response.
The six volumes of Mikrokosmos form a compendium of solo piano pieces usually known only to piano and composition students. Some are barely two minutes long, others almost ten. In particular I recommend the homage to Robert Schumann from Volume 3 and the Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm from Volume 6.
Amy Beach
A century ago, Amy Beach, or Mrs. H. H. A. Beach as she was almost invariably referred to, was a well-known composer in America, with almost all of her compositions performed within her lifetime, even such large works as the Mass in E-flat major. Nowadays her name probably comes up more often in trivia questions than in concert or radio playlists.
If the bent of your station is more towards instrumental than choral, she wrote plenty of solo piano pieces (she was a touring pianist prior to her marriage and after her husband's death) as well as a Violin Sonata in A minor, a String Quartet, a Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor and a Symphony in E minor.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Sometimes it's enough to just say "the 9 Symphonies," people automatically understand you're referring to Beethoven's Symphonies. And yet, some of them are just not as well known as the others. Have your DJs tally how often they play each Symphony. This can be as detailed as you want, perhaps distinguishing full play from excerpt. Either way, the Fourth Symphony will likely be low on the tally.
The Wellington's Victory Symphony is worth the occasional play. It would probably be just fine by Beethoven that nowadays the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies are played more often than the Wellington. However, the Wellington makes a good follow to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
Sometimes things go in and out of fashion. The Septet in E-flat major, Opus 20, was so popular in Beethoven's time that he got sick of it, while the late string quartets remain to this day kind of obscure. It is worth bringing the Septet out every now and then. The last movement, lasting about seven minutes, is a good choice to program before a commercial break.
The Missa Solemnis is exhilarating music, foreshadowing the high-octane adventure Masses of Anton Bruckner. If your listeners like that, they might also enjoy the Mass in C major, Opus 86. The Resurrexit is not as impressive as in the Missa Solemnis or in Bruckner's Masses, but is quite nice nonetheless.
For a more secular take on choral music from Beethoven (besides the Ninth Symphony), there is also the Choral Fantasy, for piano, chorus and orchestra, which is sometimes grouped with his Piano Concertos in boxed sets.
The late String Quartets are as modern today as when they were written and as when Igor Stravinsky famously made a remark to that effect. Perhaps that explains why radio stations shy away from them. But they also have unusual features that make excerpting difficult, like extremely short fast movements sandwiched between very long slower movements. The Große Fuge, originally written for the Quartet in B-flat major, Opus 130, is certainly worth playing on the radio, whether in its original form, arranged for string orchestra or arranged for full orchestra (Stokowski did such an orchestration, if I recall correctly).
Of Beethoven's pieces without an opus number, perhaps the most famous is "Für Elise." But there are plenty of piano pieces without opus number that are also pretty good, like various ecossaises. In orchestral music without opus number, a nice one is the Triumphal March from Tarpeja.
We know that Beethoven thought about writing a Tenth Symphony. But we also know that for him, the path from initial conception to finished work was often filled with twists and turns; sometimes the finished work would have very little resemblance to the initial conception. The sketches for the Fifth Symphony are a powerful demonstration of this fact. Nevertheless, this is not a good reason to deprive ourselves of Beethoven's Tenth Symphony as can best be reconstructed today.
As far as we can tell, in his last years, Beethoven conceived the first movement as an Andante in E-flat major, framing an inner Allegro in C minor. Vintage Beethoven. Indeed we wonder if Hans von Bülow knew of these sketches when he referred to the Symphony No. 1 in C minor by Brahms as "Beethoven's Tenth." If Beethoven sketched anything for the later movements, it hasn't been identified. There are at least two different recordings of Barry Cooper's reconstruction of the first movement; the one on the Chandos label (which also includes the Triple Concerto) is almost 16 minutes and thus suitable for a 20-minute block.
The "Jena" Symphony is actually by Friedrich Witt. But to ignore it now that its true authorship is known is extremely silly: it is wonderful music regardless of who wrote it.
Vincenzo Bellini
For some reason it seems that classical music stations prefer to concentrate almost entirely on instrumental music, eschewing opera and religious music. If it weren't for the Texaco Met Opera broadcasts, Bellini might never be heard on such stations. And this even though his operas like Norma, Il Pirata and I Sonambuli have overtures and act preludes.
But Bellini did write purely instrumental music for the concert hall. His Oboe Concerto in E-flat major, for example, appears on the Naxos Italian Oboe Concertos, Vol. 1 album. And there's also a Symphony in D major, which may sometimes be found bundled on albums with other such works by composers better known for their operas.
Alban Berg
Maybe Berg's opera Lulu was played once on a Texaco Metropolitan Opera broadcast. Or maybe it was Wozzeck, I don't remember. That might be one of the very few times that Berg's music has been heard on American radio. Perhaps the fear of the grinding dissonances of atonality should be abided, but we can find tonality in Berg's oeuvre, even as late as Wozzeck: Act III, Scene 4 features an interlude clearly in D minor. And the tone row of the Violin Concerto is so contrived as to make reference to major and minor keys.
But like Webern, Berg did not start out writing atonal music. When Arnold Schönberg met Berg, he complained that the young man was excessively preoccupied with lieder. A lot of these "Jugendlieder" have been recorded, and these are perhaps more pleasant to listen to than Berg's later music.
Hector Berlioz
Before Mahler burst on the scene, the prime exponent of emotional exhibitionism was Hector Berlioz. His famous Symphonie Fantastique, for example, is more an expression for his adolescent feelings for the actress Harriet Smithson than a cogent symphonic argument. Much better to play Berlioz's overtures, such as the Corsaire Overture.
Leonard Bernstein
There probably doesn't go a week that your station doesn't play some orchestral music by one of the classics conducted by Leonard Bernstein. But you do know that Bernstein was also a composer, and your station probably does play the Candide Overture or excerpts from West Side Story every now and then.
Another tuneful and thoroughly enjoyable work by Leonard Bernstein is Prelude, Fugue and Riffs. Bernstein's Symphonies are dreadfully serious affairs and perhaps better reserved for night-time play. Even the Scherzo of Symphony No. 3 hardly lives up to the name.
Georges Bizet
Almost all the excerpts from Carmen in the Suites are very famous, at least in the sense that almost everyone has heard them in a cartoon or movie trailer at some point in their lives. Most classical stations love to play Bizet's Symphony in C major and marvel at how good it was for someone as young as he was when he wrote.
I personally prefer the L'Arlesienne Suites, though these hardly qualify as "forgotten gems." As for a Symphony in C major by a French composer, I much prefer the one by Dukas.
Alexander Borodin
Borodin was by no means a prolific composer. With his day job as a doctor and chemist, he didn't have as much time left for musical composition. However, he did write much more than just the Symphony No. 2 in B minor, the unfinished Symphony No. 3 in A minor orchestrated by Glazunov and the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor.
For starters, the Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major is a very enjoyable work, showing the same tendencies for lyricism and rhythmic drive found in his better known later Symphonies. Borodin also wrote chamber music, though it would appear that the ensemble named the Borodin Quartet spends more time playing and recording Quartets by Beethoven. The Joachim Quartet has recorded both of Borodin's Quartets.
Pierre Boulez
Odds are your station has played something from the 19th Century conducted by Pierre Boulez. But the French conductor and recording artist is also a composer, and a rather avant-garde one at that. Perhaps his music is better reserved for short excerpts during low listening hours.
Johannes Brahms
The first few Hungarian Dances are so good and deserving of their airplay that it is quite easy to see the later pieces as merely milking a cash cow. That's probably how the publisher Fritz Simrock saw the later ones, but they are actually quite good too and worthy of the occasional play.
If you like Brahms but wish he had written more orchestral music, don't forget about Schönberg's orchestration of the Brahms Piano Quintet No. 1 in G minor. The Finale, Rondo alla Zingarese, feels even more like one of the Hungarian Dances in the Schönberg orchestration.
Benjamin Britten
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, or Variations on a Theme of Purcell, is an excellent piece for radio play. Your DJs don't necessarily have to play the whole thing. They could choose the variations for the string instruments and follow that with a String Quartet by Beethoven. Or play some of the variations for brass instruments and follow that with a Bruckner Symphony. Many more possibilities should suggest themselves.
Anton Bruckner
I know, I know, Bruckner's Symphonies are so damn long. In the time it takes to play Mozart's entire Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, K. 22, you can't play a single movement out of Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. But wait a minute… why is it OK to excerpt the Adagietto out of Mahler's Fifth Symphony? (I'm certain your DJs have been doing that). Mahler wrote (on average) even longer Symphonies than Bruckner.
In general, the Scherzos of Bruckner's Symphonies (except perhaps the last two) are very amenable to excerpting. Just try putting on the Scherzo from Symphony No. 3 in D minor on the same 20-minute block as something from a Hollywood score and seeing if anyone still dares say Bruckner is boring. But perhaps it is the perky Scherzo of Bruckner's String Quintet in F major that is most suitable for radio play.
For an early work, the Overture in G minor gets quite a bit of radio play. This suggests that since music radio is no longer really live (as in the days of Toscanini), that radio is in a unique position to broaden the palette of musical taste to include works that for one reason or another don't get the amount of concert play they deserve.
The complicated layerings of the Bruckner rhythm in the first movement of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony is sometimes given as a reason for why that work is so rarely played in the concert hall. But once an orchestra records it for commercially available CD, a radio station can play it as often as they like. I would recommend putting the first movement of the Sixth Symphony on the same 20-minute block as the Superman March by John Williams.
First movements and Finales of Bruckner's earlier Symphonies are short enough for radio play during the day. Consider Symphonies No.s 0 and 1, and maybe even the Study Symphony in F minor.
I hesitate to recommend playing the Finale of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, whether the fragments available at the time of the recording or a realization of the sketches by a musicologist (some work alone, some in teams), and not just because a lot of these run over 20 minutes. I have often insisted that Bruckner's Ninth needs to be heard in as close as possible a way to what he intended, and that means a Finale after the Adagio, and that the Finale should not be heard alone so as to strengthen in the minds of concertgoers the connection between this music and the rest of the Symphony.
However, for radio, I think it would be quite acceptable to play Bruckner Dialog, an original composition by Gottfried Einem that incorporates the chorale theme from the sketches of Bruckner's Ninth (lasts just a tiny bit over 16 minutes in a recording by a Czech conductor) or the fragments that were available in 1985 as recorded by Yoav Talmi (lasts almost 16 minutes).
Bruckner's piano music, which dates to fairly early in his career, has been dismissed as just being "terrible." One reviewer of Wolfgang Brunner's album on CPO wondered if even Bruckner fans would listen to the album more than once. It's true that these are early pieces written before Bruckner's crucial period of study with Simon Sechter and give little hint of his mature style. But the four Lancer-Quadrilles are charming enough, and "Stille Betrachtung an einem Herbstabend" could very well be put in the same 20-minute block as Mendelssohn's "Venetianischer Gondolierlied."
For a narrower but deeper look at Bruckner's music, read my eBook The 20 Crucial Compositions of Anton Bruckner, available from SmashWords.
John Cage
He is a famous composer and must be mentioned in this book. But he is really unsuitable for radio play. His most famous piece consists of almost five minutes of silence. Imagine the calls your station would get if one of your DJs were to play that piece. They would think you are having technical difficulties.
Charlie Chaplin
The famous comic actor and director also fancied himself a composer. It doesn't really matter to what extent the music was really by Chaplin and not by his orchestrators, it's very nice music. In particular I recommend cues from Modern Times, in which Chaplin's most famous character goes from incompetent factory worker to unwitting union leader.
Frederic Chopin
Of the Opus 28 Preludes by Chopin, No. 4 in E minor and No. 7 in A major are the only ones I can play halfway decently. All the other ones in that set are beyond my ability. The one that professional pianists have to play if they don't play the whole set is No. 15 in D-flat major, nicknamed "Raindrop." But there are 21 other Preludes in the set, and with durations ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, any one of them could be suitable filler, especially if there is time to kill after playing some big, heavy Symphony.
The only orchestral works Chopin are wrote are for piano and orchestra: of course the two Piano Concertos, as well as some Variations on a melody from Mozart's Don Giovanni, a Fantasy on Polish Airs, a Rondo à la Krakowiak and the Grand Polonaise Brilliante. Chopin also wrote songs and chamber music.
Muzio Clementi
The first thing that comes to mind when people think of Muzio Clementi is piano music. And his piano music is certainly good on its own merits and very suitable for radio play. But he also wrote some orchestral music, not as much as his teacher Beethoven, but enough to add variety to your station's coverage of Clementi. In particular, I recommend the early Symphony in D major, Opus 18, No. 2, which contains a melody Clementi tried recycling in his later Symphonies, and the Minuetto Pastorale.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Named after the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the son of an African doctor and an Englishwoman was in his day more famous for setting a poem by the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Hiawatha's Wedding Feast made Coleridge-Taylor as famous back then as Andrew Lloyd Webber is today, according to Norman Lebrecht.
The piece that introduced me to Coleridge-Taylor, and still a favorite of mine, is the "Danse Negre" from the African Suite, in orchestral garb (the original is for piano solo). Coleridge-Taylor also wrote a Violin Concerto and a Symphony, as well as some chamber music.
Coleridge-Taylor was on occasion called "the Black Mahler," but this had much more to do with his conducting than with his composing. In this book it seems quite fitting to quote Stephen Banfield and Jeremy Dibble in that "Coleridge-Taylor was an excellent conductor of catholic tastes."
Aaron Copland
The Fanfare for the Common Man, the Rodeo Suite, "Simple Gifts" from the Old American Songs, these are some of Copland's greatest hits.
But also consider the other Old American Songs. Though politically incorrect because of the final verse, "I Bought Me a Cat" is hilarious. The story of "The Golden Willow Tree" will stick in your mind. The standard interpretation of these songs, at least the one that will set the bar for a long time to come, is of course the one by bass singer William Warfield with an orchestra conducted by Aaron Copland. But many tenors have sung them with piano accompaniment (it seems at least one of them has played the piano himself as he sang). I don't really like the idea of choirs singing these songs, but at least it gives you a way to mix things up a little bit.
Copland also set some poems by Emily Dickinson to music, and these are worth the occasional hearing.
Carl Czerny
Serious piano students know Czerny, one of Beethoven's pupils, for his piano etudes, exercises, drills, etc. Those pieces are perhaps best confined to the practice rooms. But he also wrote some very intense orchestral music. Of his six Symphonies, at least four have been recorded, as far as I know. No. 1 in C minor and No. 6 in G minor are very much worth hearing.
While Czerny was not a carbon copy of Beethoven, Czerny's music has an athleticism to it quite like Beethoven's. I should also mention that Czerny wrote down some of his cadenzas for Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major.
Gaetano Donizetti
The Marco Polo label did a great service to Donizetti with their Instrumental Concertos album. In addition to concertos for various wind instruments, violin and cello, the album also includes the Symphony in D minor which Donizetti wrote in memory of the violinist Capuzzi; in one movement, it has somewhat the feel of an opera overture.
Of course Donizetti is best known for opera. The Overture to Don Pasquale is known well enough.
Paul Dukas
I had trouble deciding on whether or not to put Dukas in the one-hit wonders category. It seems to me that besides Sorcerer's Apprentice, the Fanfare "to precede" La Peri is at least somewhat popular.
An intense perfectionist, Dukas destroyed a lot of the music he wrote. Besides Sorcerer's Apprentice and La Peri, we also have left the entire Arianne et Barbe-bleue opera and a Symphony in C major. If your station doesn't like playing vocal music, the preludes to Acts II and III of Arianne are good choices.
The famous fanfare of course shows off an orchestra's brass section, but in arrangement for organ, it also shows off pipes.
As Symphonies in C major by French composers go, my favorite is the one by Dukas. I am quite pleased to report that WCPE played the entire Dukas Symphony as I was writing this. The first movement has a nocturnal atmosphere quite removed from that of a Haydn Symphony in the same key. The profound melancholy of the slow movement is genuine and not one bit sentimentally manipulative. And in the Finale we find Bruckner-like heroics and even one passage that really does sound quite like Bruckner. But the use of muted trumpets for a fanfare is decidedly French.
Antonín Dvořák
One thing that annoys me about many programme listings and classical shopping sites is the writing of "Antonín Dvorák." If you're not going to write the caron (or háček), you might as well write "Antonin Dvorak." I am aware that on the Internet the háček does not always come across intact, getting replaced by a box or a question mark. In fact, in this book you're reading right now, you might be seeing "Dvo?ák" rather than the correct spelling. I sometimes avoid writing about this Czech composer (or other Czech composers) precisely because I don't want that to happen. Other times I use some circumlocution to refer to him, such as "Czech contemporary of Brahms." But writing about Dvořák here is unavoidable. So if you're seeing a bunch of those annoying boxes or question marks in the text that follows, I apologize.
The Carnival Overture, which comes out of a set of three melodically-connected pieces about "nature, life and love," is nice but played way too often. In Nature's Realm is played sometimes, and inexplicably Othello hardly ever. This is the all-Dvořák programme I would construct for a concert: the Othello Overture, the Piano Concerto in G minor and the Symphony No. 4 in D minor. But this is the all-Dvořák programme more likely to get put together: the Carnival Overture, the Cello Concerto in B minor and the Symphony No. 9 in E minor, "From the New World." While we're talking about Overtures, let's not forget Vanda, Dvořák's opera of which only the Overture has been published.
Dvořák wrote eight other Symphonies besides the Ninth and they are all worth playing at least partially. The Sixth and Seventh have wonderful Furiant Scherzos, and the Eighth has a wonderful chance for the trombones to shine in the Finale. The Finale of the Fifth is a surprising burst of drama considering the pastoral nature of what has gone on before; hence it makes sense to play just the Finale on the radio. I love the strongly repetitive nature of the Finale of the Fourth, though I am perhaps quite alone in this assessment.
The Ninth Symphony isn't the only thing Dvořák wrote in America. The String Quartet No. 12 in F major, the "American," though it does get some radio play, is worth playing more often. The Ninth Symphony should never be played again unless a listener specifically requests it.
As for concertos, Dvořák's Violin Concerto in A minor and Cello Concerto in B minor are both nice, but the Piano Concerto in G minor is undeservedly neglected. Dvořák's main instrument was the viola, but it is reasonable to assume that he was at least competent on the piano. Nevertheless, his Piano Concerto soon gained a reputation for being completely unplayable, and Vilém Kurz took it upon himself to revise the solo part. Kurz's revision has not only been performed in concert, it has even been published together with the original. But don't worry yourself over such details. This work will be new and pleasant to your listeners regardless of which pianist's recording you choose.
Some of the Slavonic Dances get played quite often, and there's nothing wrong with that. But, just for the sake of spicing things up, encourage your DJs to alternate between playing them in their piano duet and orchestral versions. The Prague Waltzes are also very nice and worth playing more often.
In 1896, with the Ninth Symphony behind him, Dvořák wrote four tone poems, the titles of which I will give in English rather than Czech: The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, The Golden Spinning Wheel and The Wood Dove (or Wild Dove). A Hero's Song followed in 1897. Fritz Simrock of course preferred piano pieces (and indeed Dvořák arranged The Wood Dove for piano). But these tone poems have in this day found some degree of popularity as filler for recordings of Dvořák's Symphonies.
Sir Edward Elgar
It is actually because of Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit that I've gotten to know the music of Sir Edward Elgar. A snippet of the Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major is used in that film, though oddly not played by a British orchestra. I haven't bought the soundtrack to the movie, but I did buy a London Symphony Orchestra CD of the whole Symphony and have loved it ever since.
Elgar is of course best known for the Enigma Variations, and WCPE is quite fond of playing "Nimrod." "Troyte" and "Dorabella" are quite nice and suitable for radio play.
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington was of course a famous jazz band leader. But some of his music has been played very nicely by symphony orchestras, and here I would like to specifically recommend the Detroit Symphony Orchestra with Neeme Järvi on the Chandos label playing a Suite from The River. I especially recommend the third piece, "Giggling Rapids."
Manuel de Falla
The Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo was played quite often on the old WQRS, and I suspect it is played quite often on most classical stations today. But did you know that Falla also wrote a Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin and Cello? If you like Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, odds are you will also like this concerto.
Reinhold Glière
Best known for the Horn Concerto in B-flat major, Glière also wrote some very good concertos for other instruments (such as cello and harp) and even voice: the Coloratura Soprano Concerto, Opus 82 is wonderful: in two movements, the opening Andante is filled with a touching melancholy, while the closing Allegro is genuinely joyful, but of course a good performance will manage a gradual transition from the mood of the Andante. The whole thing fits within a 20-minute block and still leaves time for commercials.
Glière also wrote Symphonies and String Quartets, and even organ music. In some radio markets he may be better known for the Red Poppy Suite than for the Horn Concerto.
Henryk Mikołaj Górecki
The old WQRS used to play a track out of most of the top-selling classical CDs every Sunday. Soon after the release of Dawn Upshaw's album with the London Sinfonietta and David Zinman, the second movement was played at the end of that programme almost every Sunday. In fact, it seems that a classical composer was actually outselling Michael Jackson at some point. But why the second movement, in which a young woman in a concentration camp pleads the Virgin Mary not to cry? Because it's just short of 10 minutes in the Upshaw performance; the other two movements are much longer.
Personally I much prefer the first movement of Symphony No. 2, the "Copernican." The work is in honor of Polish astronomer Mikołaj Kopernik, better known as Nicolaus Copernicus, who was able to teach the truth of heliocentrism without incurring the wrath of the church like Galileo. However, the first movement of this Symphony, even abridged (easily done due to the long pauses built into it) may be unsuitable for radio play on account of being much more obviously avant-garde than the Third Symphony. However, the second movement does point ahead to the Third Symphony.
Beatus Vir and Miserere are much too long for radio play and difficult to abridge or excerpt from. Totus Tuus and Amen are shorter and fit easily into a 20-minute set. The Three Pieces in the Olden Style, especially the second with its catchy motoric rhythm, are eminently suitable for radio play.
Edvard Grieg
Almost everything he wrote seems to be quite overplayed. The Peer Gynt Suites, the Piano Concerto in A minor, the music from Sigurd Jorsalfar, to name just a few. I do like Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, preferably in its orchestral version, but even that piece has a good chance of being overplayed by your station.
George Frideric Handel
The oratorio Messiah contains what is with hardly any doubt the most famous setting in music of the word "Alleluia." But that was of course not the only time Handel got to set that word to music. Check out the end of Judas Maccabeus; the whole oratorio if you have the time, it is well worth it.
Howard Hanson
To this day, Howard Hanson's most popular work remains his Symphony No. 2. But it is not played as often on American radio stations as it should. Here is my suggestion for a 20-minute block: that Symphony and John Williams's music for E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial. And in the next 20-minute block, Salieri's Organ Concerto in C major.
Roy Harris
Here is another American who ought to be played more often on American radio. The duration of his one-movement Third Symphony makes it a little inconvenient, but it is very worthwhile music to play.
Joseph Haydn
Though it is a bit of an oversimplification to call Joseph Haydn "the Father of the Symphony," it must be acknowledged that each of the more than one hundred Symphonies he wrote has been tremendously influential in the development of the form. And yet, with so many to choose from, there is a tendency to concentrate on a dozen or two of them, both in the concert hall and on the airwaves. Those Symphonies of his that have a nickname seem to have been helped in their popularity by the assignment of a nickname. So, in recommending Haydn Symphonies, I will limit myself to those without nicknames, or at least nicknames that haven't caught on.
From his earliest Symphonies, I recommend No.s 23, 27 and 29. Franz Koglmann famously took snippets out of No. 27 for his cool jazz piece Nocturnal Walks: both that piece and the Haydn would be excellent for night-time play. No. 70 in D major ends with an intense fugue that almost seems to come out of nowhere. If for no other reason than numbers, the oft-played No. 88 in G major is generally put together on the same disc as No. 89 in F major, which has many understated charms.
We all know the regal Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major, of course, but let's not forget about Haydn's two Cello Concertos. Haydn not himself being a piano prodigy, his Piano Concertos just aren't held in the same high esteem as Mozart's and Beethoven's. However, these Piano Concertos are always tuneful and energetic, and any of them make for a good alternative when your DJs reach for the Trumpet Concerto.
Gustav Holst
I have to admit that for now I'm kind of sour on Holst but it's not his fault. There is this two-faced guy with an orchestra heavy on brass and light on strings. He said he'd play one of my arrangements (not an original composition of mine, mind you) but immediately started backpedaling. I could respect him if, instead of martyrizing himself over the plight of modern local composers ("they're just dying to have their stuff played" but there's no need to seek them out and offer your services), he had said from the start "I really only feel like playing Holst and Mahler."
It's of course instructional to watch an understaffed orchestra valiantly try to go through "Mars" and "Jupiter" from The Planets. It's very famous music and student musicians want to tackle it, and it doesn't help when the orchestra professor, instead of explaining why they're not ready for it, merely forbids it, or worse, laughs it off. So they get together after class for the purpose of doing forbidden repertoire. At times their enthusiasm for the music is infectious. At other times it becomes painfully clear that one saxophone can't really substitute for a full cello section.
Anyway, besides The Planets, there is The Mystic Trumpeter (which sometimes pads out a Planets disc) The Cloud Messenger and Beni Mora. You can add variety to The Planets by playing "Neptune" immediately followed by "Pluto" by Colin Matthews.
James Horner
Classical music snobs will certainly scoff at my inclusion of Hollywood film composer James Horner (and maybe more so John Williams later on). Horner is best known for his Titanic score, which has overshadowed the excellent Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan score. The soundtrack album arranges selections from the score out of chronological story order and into a kind of Symphony that can be enjoyed as a purely abstract progression of themes. For Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Horner doesn't seem to have put the same kind of effort John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith put into sequels.
Alan Hovhaness
Of the many Symphonies Hovhaness wrote, only No. 2, "Mysterious Mountain" and No. 50, "Mt. St. Helens" (with a dramatic evocation of a volcanic eruption) really stand out to me, but both works could really use radio play. Though the Finale of No. 50, with all its noise to depict the volcano, might scare off some listeners. The previous movement, depicting the Spirit Lake, is a much safer bet and a better introduction to Hovhaness.
And God Created Great Whales features the orchestra and recorded whale song. Hovhaness Symphony discs are sometimes padded out with the Prayer of St. Gregory (very nice music for trumpet and string orchestra) or the Quadruple Fugue.
Charles Ives
The Second Symphony famously ends with a full 12-note discord. But Symphony No. 1 in D minor is a very nice, enjoyable work from beginning to end. Central Park in the Dark is one of those wonderful concert works that might be too much of a risk for radio play. Who would have guessed that it would fall to a choir from Stuttgart to teach Americans that Ives wrote Psalms, too? American stations occasionally play the Variations on "America, My Country 'Tis of Thee," but it wouldn't hurt to play that more often.
Scott Joplin
Everyone knows The Entertainer and the Maple Leaf Rag, but the Paragon Rag and the Country Club Rag are also good choices to get the benefit of familiar melodies without the downside of melodies so familiar they are worn out.
Did you know Joplin wrote an opera? In fact, Treemonisha was premiered in 1976, decades after Joplin's death, to celebrate the American bicentennial. The entire opera has been recorded on, of all labels, Deutsche Grammophon.
Dmitry Kabalevsky
I am pretty sure that the Colas Breugnon Overture is the only piece of music by Kabalevsky I have ever heard on the radio. Or maybe I have also heard excerpts from The Comedians on the radio. But there is in fact enough by Kabalevsky to do an all-Kabalevsky concert: start with the Colas Breugnon Overture, continue with one of the concertos for cello or piano, and conclude with one of the Symphonies.
The Overture Pathetique might be a good start to a program that also includes Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor. A personal favorite of mine is the symphonic poem titled Spring, and since it's barely ten minutes in the slowest interpretation, it can fit well within a 20-minute block.
Gustav Mahler
Once you get past adolescence, Mahler starts to seem quite needlessly melodramatic and hysterical. In his lifetime, Mahler was better known as a conductor, performing the music of others, and his own music was derided for being rather derivative. After the Mahler revival that started in the 1960s, we have reached a saturation of Mahler's music that teenage classical music fans appreciate but older listeners perhaps not quite so much.
Mahler is often bracketed with Bruckner, and those who know better have gotten tired of pointing out that the similarities are few, such as that both wrote long Symphonies and used chorale melodies. But one important difference between Bruckner and Mahler as far as radio play is concerned, is that the long durations of the latter's pieces just aren't as much of a deterrent to radio play.
In an alternate universe where Mahler is a one-hit wonder, his one hit would be the Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony. It comes near the end of a Symphony that starts out with a dire funeral call from the trumpet, sandwiched between a long-winded, convoluted Scherzo and a cute Rondo, what could very well be the most genuinely happy music Mahler ever wrote. It would be worthwhile overrunning a 20-minute block with the Adagietto and Rondo (the two are practically connected) from one of the faster interpretations of the Symphony, such as Valery Gergiev's with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Mahler's Symphonies are closely connected with his Lieder, and thus it would be a good idea to play a movement of one Symphony in a 20-minute block and follow it with the quoted Lied, such as for example, either the first or third movement of the First Symphony in one block and the Lieder eine fahrenden Gesellen after the commercial break.
The tragic Sixth Symphony is perhaps too heavy for the radio, except for an orchestra concert broadcast. But the Seventh Symphony is vastly underrated. The first movement is a little too long for the radio, but the central Scherzo, wonderfully spooky, and the Andante amoroso, a viable alternative to the worn-out Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, would both make for brilliant radio selections.
From the unfinished Tenth Symphony, any of the middle movements, in whatever completion, would be excellent choices for radio play. The Cooke, Mazzetti and Wheeler completions, though divergent in their approaches, are credible attempts to finish what Mahler started. The Carpenter completion is fascinating because it often sounds like he's trying to outdo Mahler, adding a great deal of his own freely composed countermelodies that compete for the listener's attention.
Felix Mendelssohn
Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Opus 25, and Piano Concerto in D minor, Opus 40. No need to play the Violin Concerto in E minor again. That's all I will say about Mendelssohn. Oh, wait a minute: there is a Violin Concerto in D minor that's rarely heard for some reason, so have your DJs play that the next time they itch to play the E minor. Just in case your listeners get tired of the Piano Concertos I mentioned earlier, there is a Piano Concerto in A minor without an opus number.
Overplayed as it is, the Italian Symphony is nowhere near as annoying as the Violin Concerto in E minor. But Mendelssohn's other Symphonies, like No. 5 in D major, are deserving of more radio play. And the youthful String Symphonies are worth checking out, too.
Gian Carlo Menotti
Around Christmas, there are sometimes productions of Menotti's opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have any purely instrumental numbers that classical instrumental stations could use. However, Menotti did write orchestral music: considering playing his Violin Concerto in A minor.
Leopold Mozart
After Wolfgang Amadeus was born, Leopold composed very little, focusing his attention on turning little Amadeus into a child prodigy phenomenon. In this, Leopold succeeded, and if he had outlived his son by two centuries, would have raked in massive profits. Some have speculated that Leopold Mozart could have been a far more significant composer if he had kept up his composing, but it seems far more reasonable to speculate that even back then he had some idea of the greater marketing potential of a child prodigy over a seasoned composer.
The "Toy" Symphony that was once attributed to Joseph Haydn is now more often attributed to Leopold Mozart, but we still can't for sure rule out other contemporaries whose names might not even appear in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. There are other Symphonies by Leopold Mozart that we can ascribe to him with greater certainty, thanks mainly to the scholarship of Cliff Eisen, and which have been recorded on compact disc.
Mozart's Trumpet Concerto in D major, for the old natural trumpet, is a work that could not be attributed to Joseph Haydn, who famously wrote the first Trumpet Concerto for a trumpet with valves. Like Michael Haydn's Trumpet Concerto in C major, Mozart's is in two movements, the first slow, the second fast.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig von Köchel counted 626 distinct compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, yet some classical radio stations play only a subset of about twenty or forty of these.
Mozart wrote about forty Symphonies, of which less than a dozen get regular play (most of the ones with numbers in the 30s, plus No.s 40 and 41). Symphony No. 1 seems to get a lot of concert and radio play, as if to underline the fact that Mozart was a child prodigy. What most people forget or don't even know is Wolfgang's father Leopold laid the groundwork for his achievements in the genre.
In between No. 1 and No. 25, Wolfgang wrote a lot of thoroughly competent and even pleasant Symphonies. Because of something I wrote earlier in this book about Bruckner, I dug up Mozart's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, K. 22. I like it. I had probably never heard it before and I might have never heard it in my lifetime.
Because of my particular experience with Mozart I've grown to like his chamber music. The Quartets dedicated to Haydn, the Flute Quartet No. 1 in D major, the Duos for Violin and Viola, these are all worthy of radio play, and excellent substitutes for any unnecessary plays of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, which should never again be played by your radio station unless either a listener specifically requests it or you have a new recording by a local ensemble.
But really, with Mozart, you can practically throw darts or spin a wheel and come up with reliably pleasant selections. Or a random number generator (there are a few available online for free). I tried this with the random number generator from Random.org, set to give me ten numbers from 1 to 626, and these are the selections it gave me: a Canon in G major for four voices, K. 232; the Symphony No. 32 in G major, K. 318; Regina coeli, K. 108 (K. 74d in the amended catalog); an Adagio in B minor for piano, K. 540; a Fantasia in C minor for violin and piano, K. 396 (K. 385f amended); an aria, "Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner!" K. 383; the Symphony No. 34 in C major, K. 338; an aria, "Alcandro, lo confesso," K. 294; another aria, "Mentre ti lascio, o figlia," K. 513; and a Piano Sonata in C major, K. 545. Aside from the two Symphonies, I am 99% sure I have never heard any of these in any way, and certainly not on classical radio. And after weeding out the vocal selections, this still leaves four instrumental pieces your listeners have probably never heard before.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-25 show above.)