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Weekend of January 10, 2009

The Firebird

It was an unlikely chain of events that brought Igor Stravinsky and "The Firebird" together. The Ballet Russes first considered four other composers before turning, in desperation, to the young, unknown Stravinsky. The result was a masterpiece, and Stravinsky became an overnight star. Today we'll hear the Netherlands Symphony perform a suite from Stravinsky's ballet.

Today's Playlist

hour 1

  • Antonio Vivaldi
    Third and Fourth Movements from Concerto in D Minor for Recorders and Strings, RV 535
    Matthias Maute, recorder and conductor, with Ensemble Caprice
  • Duke Ellington
    "Jump for Joy"
    Calefax
    The Frick Collection, New York City
  • George Gershwin
    "Blues" from "An American in Paris"
    The Italian Saxophone Quartet
    Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa, California
  • Harold Arlen
    "Over the Rainbow"
    Soprano Renee Fleming and pianist Richard Bado
    Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Studio, St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Somei Satoh
    "Birds in Warped Time II"
    Violinist Theresa Salomon and pianist Kathrun Woodard
    Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • Igor Stravinsky
    Suite from "The Firebird"
    The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra with conductor Gerd Albrecht
    The Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

hour 2

  • Joseph Haydn
    Presto from Quartet No. 27 in D, Op. 20, No. 4
    The Mendelssohn String Quartet
    Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Studio, St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Joseph Haydn
    Piano Sonata in B Minor, Hob. XVI:32
    Pianist Chu-Fang Huang
    Strings Music Festival, Steamboat Springs, Colorado
  • Aaron Copland
    "Three Latin American Sketches"
    The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
    Carnegie Hall, New York City
  • Juan Crisostomos Arriaga
    String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat
    The Miro Quartet
    Alice Tully Hall, New York City
  • Antonin Dvorak
    Vivace from String Quartet No. 12 in F, Op. 96 ("American")
    The Guarneri Quartet
Today's Fredlines

Fred Child

Music and Silence

Posted at 9:25 PM on August 31, 2009 (5 Comments)

Robert Fripp: "Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence."

Aldous Huxley: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

Marcel Marceau: "Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music."

Leopold Stokowski (to an audience not providing enough silence): "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence."

Former pianist, now anonymous monk: "Silence is my music now."

Edith Sitwell: "My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."

Music theorist Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis: "The same acoustic silence, embedded in two different excerpts, can be perceived dramatically differently."

John Cage, on reaction to his 'silent' piece 4'33": "They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn't know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began patterning the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out."
Quoted by Richard Kostelanetz in his 2003 book, "Conversing with John Cage."

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