Positively Puzzled

Recently something has changed and the data for our playlists is not being updated to appear in Google Search. I noticed this because it's handy for me to check to see whether or not Meera or me have played a piece recently.  I don't know what has changed.  The link to our playlist has been kind of buried several levels downs in the (fairly) new KUSP blog pages as part of the web presence remodel.  Maybe if I put the link here, the search crawler won't miss it, so here is the main playlist page for Musica della sera: Voila!  This year's playlists for Musica della sera Thursday evening classical radio show on KUSP Radio : http://www.kusp.org/playlists/mds/index.html Come and get it, web crawler!  We're here, we're here! The Musica della sera blog page is here: http://blogs.kusp.org/musicadellasera/

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, June 18, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) It was an (almost) all-Bach program, as sometimes happens. I start with Bach, and then just can't pull myself away. Must be those sunglasses. J.S. Bach in shades, artist unknown . Bach did not specify the instrumentation for the Art of the Fugue. The show begins with an arrangement for harpsichord, four hands, Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot sharing the bench. The last of the four selections is the famous unfinished fugue, played as it often is,in its uncompleted form, the voices dropping out one by one, until the last one stops in the middle...eerie. Evidently Bach became too ill to finish it and died some months later. It was the only piece where he used the musical letters of his name as a theme. (In German notation, B-flat A C B-natural is rendered as B A C H) This tidbit fro...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, May 21, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) In my mother's day they called the kind of music I play on the show "funeral music". Well, in this case, it's literally true. A good chunk of the program was devoted to, quoting the liner notes: The complete music for Queen Mary's funeral, newly assembled and edited, and performed in Westminster Abbey by the Abbey Choir for the first time since 1695. Comprised of compositions by Henry Purcell, Thomas Tollet, John Paisible, Thomas Morley, Purcell's contribution is best known; his funeral march provided the theme, in a synthesized treatment by Wendy Carlos, for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange . I'm also very fond of the trumpet canzona he wrote for the occasion. Alas, Purcell himself was to die the year following the queen's funeral. Though h...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, May 7, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) After creating a baroque diversion with two keyboard works by Bach (played on 20th Century pianos), the show took a distinctly modern turn, beginning with the tuneful Starry Night for flute, harp, and xylophone, by Alan Hovhaness. Next, a performance by Tashi and friends of Toru Takemitsu's Water-Ways, a captivating atonal combination of timbral textures scored for clarinet, two harps, piano, violin and two vibraphones. Next, the Sibelius String Quartet in D Minor, Op.56, completed in 1909 and subtitled by him "Voces Intimae", a wonderful new discovery for me...my thought was, hey, why didn't anyone tell me Sibelius wrote a wonderful string quartet? He wrote much chamber music in youth, but most of it was never published. This is the only string quartet he deemed worthy...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to listen to on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available on demand until Thursday, March 26, 2009 First of all, we at KUSP want to thank the many who pledged during the program. It was a remarkably robust show of support for Musica della sera, KUSP, and community radio. Frankly, with the economic situation what it is, we weren't expecting a big response, so it was very heartening. Thank you. Along with the snappy husband-and-wife banter and rousing encouragement of supporting community radio, there was some pretty enjoyable music. I lugged in my massive 80-disc Glenn Gould Columbia collection, a request last week by Patrick, our affable phone answerer. Drawing from 3 centuries of keyboard repertoire, I played selected Two- and Three-part inventions by Bach, a relatively brisk performance of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and Hindemith's 2nd piano sonata. And yes, the recordings...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to listen to on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available on demand until Thursday, February 26, 2009 Devoted to the music of George Frideric Händel (1685-1759), it includes violin sonatas, a harpsichord suite, concerti grossi, an organ concerto, and the Dixit Dominus (1707), a youthful choral work that shows off Handel's dazzling genius and mastery of musical forms. You can see exactly what was played and who performed it by referring to the playlist (originally broadcast 2/19/2009). George Frideric Handel, by Mercier, ca. 1720 My wife, Meera Collier-Mitchell , and I take turns hosting the classical radio program Musica della sera on Thursday evenings, 7-9:30 (PT). This week Nicholas hosted. KUSP Radio is now offering On Demand downloads of its music programs. Peruse the calendar listing, with audio links, of The Shows Available . Click the one for Musica della sera Thursday night ...

Musica della sera for January 22, 2009 The latest show is now up on the Internet to listen to on demand; see below for locating the link. The main work on the program is Kurt Rodarmer's guitar transcription and performance of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations. His approach to the work is remarkable and interesting, which he describes extensively in the liner notes . A few highlights: Glenn Gould's second and last release of the Goldberg Variations on piano was for me a landmark event. He attempted to connect each of the variations on the basis of rhythmic relationships rather than considering each as simply a variation upon the theme. The work is based upon the opening Aria, which originally appeared in the Klavierbüchen of Anna Magdalena Bach from 1725 as a Sarabande... The thirty variations which follow are based loosely upon the bass or harmonic progression rather than on any melodic theme. When I first evaluated the possibility of transcribing the work, it became clear ...