Sunday, March 13, 2011

3/13 Performance Today's "50 Essential Classical"

NPR Radio has always been an incredibly rich source of information and education about classical music.  One of my favorite features, especially when I was just getting into classical music, is The "PT 50" - that is, the "Performance Today 50 Essential Classical Music CDs" show.  This is a series of - guess what - 50 half-hour programs where 2 radio hosts basically "sell" their favorite classical records and play excerpts from them.  The 3 shows about Beethoven works were these:

BEETHOVEN:
Piano Sonatas Nos. 21 "Waldstein", 23 "Appassionata" & 26 "Les Adieux"
Emil Gilels, piano
(Piano Sonata #26 In Eb, Op.81A, "Les Adieux" (1810) is performed in its entirety starting from 6:30)

The String Quartets
Emerson String Quartet (Op.95 M1, Op.18,No.2 M2, Op.135 M2, Op.59,No.3 M4)

Symphony No. 5 in c minor, Op. 67
Vienna Philharmonic,Carlos Kleiber, conductor

By clicking on the above links you should be able to launch your RealMedia player (or whatever browser plug-in you have set to play RAM streams).  Personally, I have Media Player Classic assigned in my Firefox Options/Applications to play RAM files. 

These programs were hosted by Fred Child and featured selections and commentary by Ted Libbey, who I also paraphrased in 1/5 Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas: An Overview (Libby).

To go to the full listing of the PT 50 see below:
The NPR PT 50 w Ted Libby

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