July 2001
July 1 - July 8 - July 15 - July 22 - July 29

Eugenia Zukerman, flute; The Shanghai String Quartet
July 1, 2001
Poetry in Motion
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In music as in life, collaboration often affords us our richest experiences. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, Bill McGlaughlin hosts five artists whose collaboration yields real musical treasure. Flutist Eugenia Zukerman joins forces with the Shanghai String Quartet for works from China, Classical Europe, and the U. S. Victorian era. Living composer Zhou Long's "Old Fisherman" — a poem setting from a cycle called Poems of Tang — begins the program. Mozart's aria-like Flute Quartet in D (K. 285) and Amy Beach's luxuriant Theme and Variations (Opus 80) complete the hour.

Zhou Long: The Old Fisherman from Poems of Tang
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285
Amy Beach: Theme and Variations, Op. 80

More about Eugenia Zukerman and The Shanghai String Quartet - Musician Discography

Arte Chorale
July 8, 2001
Coming Alive
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The ancient traditions of Orthodox choral singing encompass some of the most glorious music ever written for human voices. After a long period of official silence in 20th-century Russia, this age-old legacy is again coming alive. Bill McGlaughlin's guests this week on Saint Paul Sunday are at the heart of this Renaissance. Arte Chorale—a choir of twelve men founded at the Archangel Gabriel Church in Moscow—will perform a rich cross-section of Orthodox music, from early chant to works of this century. You'll find their singing deeply beguiling to the Western ear.

Traditional (Znamennyi Rospev): O, Praise the Lord's Name
Nikolai Golovanov: Hymn for St. Nicholas
Petar Dinev: The Wise Thief
Alexander Alexandrov: Lord, Bless My Soul
Dmitri Bortnyanski: Lord By Your Power
Alexandre Kastalskij: Lord, Now Let Thou Thy Servant Depart
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Penitential Prayer for Russia
Kosolapov: Lord, Steadfast
Kostalsky: Christ is Risen from the Dead
Pavel Chesnokov: Having Beheld the Resurrection of Christ
Pavel Chesnokov: The Angel Cried Out, Rejoice!
Pavel Chesnokov: Let My Prayer Arise
Troparion: Christ is Risen from the Dead!
Traditional: Blessed is the Man who walketh not in the Council of the Wicked

Musician Discography

The Orion String Quartet
July 15, 2001
Quartet Traditions
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The celebrated Orion String Quartet visits Saint Paul Sunday this week. Combining the elegance and intensity of European and American traditions of quartet playing, Orion maintains a unique place among chamber ensembles around the world. First off, they'll play a sumptuous intermezzo from the first quartet by a little-known contemporary of Tchaikovsky, Sergei Taneyev. They'll continue with Antonín Dvorák's beloved "American" quartet, a work the Czech composer completed during a summer sojourn in Spillville, Iowa in 1893. And they'll conclude with a performance of Wynton Marsalis' "Hellbound Highball," a movement from the jazz master's extended work called "At the Octoroon Balls." Orion's collaboration with Marsalis marks an exciting new chapter in this country's ongoing relationship between its classical and jazz cultures.

Antonín Dvorák: Quartet in F major, Op. 96, "American"
Sergei Taneyev: Quartet No. 1 in Bb, Op. 4-
   IV. Intermezzo: Andantino
Wynton Marsalis: At the Octoroon Balls-V. Hellbound Highball

More about the program - Musician Discography

The Palladian Ensemble
July 22, 2001
New Life
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"They began the composition, which was for two small violins and the kind of lute known as the theorbo, with such agreeable harmony and extraordinary combinations of intervals, that I cannot recall having heard the like before... "

Such were the excited responses of a Renaissance listener to the repertoire and instrumentation of an ensemble much like the one you can hear this week on Saint Paul Sunday, when host Bill McGlaughlin welcomes the Palladian Ensemble into the studio. These four acclaimed performers play a wide range of original instruments, including recorders, violins, viola da gamba, theorbo, lute, and guitar. Combining extraordinary musicianship with a sure historical grasp of their chosen repertoire, the Palladians breathe new life into music composed centuries ago. In the words of the New Yorker, the ensemble fuses "musical vivacity with consummate technical élan" as they play works by Marais, Cazzati, and Barsanti, as well as their own arrangements and improvisations.

Marurizio Cazzati: Suite
arr. Palladian Ensemble: Setting of "The Western Wind"
arr. Palladian Ensemble: A New Tune
Marin Marais: Pieces en Trio
Nicola Matteis/Francecso Barsanti: Suite of Scots Airs

More about the program - Musician Discography - Musician Web Site

Lars Vogt, piano
July 29, 2001
The Language of Passion
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Ludwig van Beethoven has for so long loomed a giant of Western culture that the sheer originality of his music when it first appeared is sometimes forgotten. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, the brilliant young German pianist Lars Vogt explores Beethoven's music at its most intimate and influential, as well as its most beloved and profound. Vogt will bring us the first two of the Opus 126 Bagatelles - the final piano works Beethoven composed. "He put all his wisdom and all his mystic language into these works," observes Vogt. "People didn't understand them in Beethoven's time." Vogt will also perform one of the best-loved works in any repertoire, the Appasionata sonata, as well as the evocative "Theme and Variations" by Tatyana Komarova, who also happens to be his wife.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Bagatelles, Op. 126-Nos. 1 and 2
Tatanya Komarova: Theme and Variations
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No. 23 in f minor, Op. 57, "Appassionata"

More about the program - Musician Discography - Musician Web Site

Audio from previous shows is archived in the program catalog. Go to the catalog to listen to previous shows.

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