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March 9, 2009

The Canadian Mozart

Most people have never heard of Canadian composer Andre Mathieu. Mathieu was a rising star in the 1930s and 1940s. But he led a troubled life, dropped out of the music scene, and died in obscurity in 1968. Some call him the Canadian Mozart, although his style is closer to Rachmaninoff, who called Mathieu a genius. On today's show, Alain Lefevre performs Mathieu's fourth piano concerto with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Today's Playlist

hour 1

  • Alexander Scriabin
    Etude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 2, No. 1, and Etude in F-sharp Minor, Op. 42, No. 2
    Pianist Garrick Ohlsson
  • Henry Purcell
    Trumpet Sonata in D, Z. 850
    Trumpeter Alison Balsom and friends
    Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
  • William Byrd
    "Ave Verum Corpus"
    Chanticleer
    Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Athens, Georgia
  • Joseph Haydn
    Symphony No. 103 in E-flat ("Drumroll")
    The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra with conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste
    Oslo Concert Hall, Oslo, Norway
  • Alexander Scriabin
    Four Preludes, Op. 11
    Pianist Garrick Ohlsson
    92nd Street Y, New York City

hour 2

  • Andre Mathieu
    "Lullaby" and "Lament"
    The Tuscon Symphony Orchestra with conductor George Hanson
  • Firminius Caron
    "Helas que pora Advenire"
    Mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson with Musica Antiqua of London
    Tage Alter Musik, Herne, Germany
  • Bartolomeo Tromboncino
    "Or Che Son di Pregion"
    Mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson with Musica Antiqua of London
    Tage Alter Musik, Herne, Germany
  • Andre Mathieu
    Piano Concerto No. 4 in E Minor
    Pianist Alain Lefevre with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra and conductor George Hanson
    Tucson Music Hall, Tucson, Arizona
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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