The Ames Piano Quartet
November 7, 1999

Four Score Delight
Saint Paul Sunday will bring listeners a treasure trove of seldom-heard lyrical jewels from the piano quartet repertoire this week when host Bill McGlaughlin welcomes the extraordinary Ames Piano Quartet from Iowa State University. They'll perform Frank Bridge's rhapsodic Phantasie, a soulful adagio movement from Walter Piston's Quartet, and Joseph Suk's loving and youthful A minor quartet for piano and strings. Plus there's a little polka from Alexander Tansman's Suite Divertissement. You'll want to add these four composers - and these four musicians - to your list of favorites after you hear these sonorous and beautifully textured interpretations from the Ames Piano Quartet.

Program:
Frank Bridge: Phantasie
Walter Piston: Quartet--II. Adagio sostenuto
Joseph Suk: Quartet for piano and strings in a minor, Op. 1.
Alexander Tansman: Suite Divertissement--Polka

About the Ames Piano Quartet

Mark O'Connor, violin
November 14, 1999

Fiddlin' with Fire
Fiddle genius and composer Mark O'Connor evokes delight and awe wherever he goes, and this week on Saint Paul Sunday, host Bill McGlaughlin welcomes him for a marvelous sampling of his latest compositions for solo violin and mandolin - works inspired by the legendary violinist Nicolò Paganini. O'Connor explores his instruments' possibilities in continually surprising and virtuosic ways, and his own performances of them are sure to dazzle.

All works and performances by Mark O'Connor

Cricket Dance
Caprice No. 4 in D major
Improvisation
Fancy Stops and Goes
Flailing
Midnight on the Water/Bonaparte's Retreat
Follow the Scout
Appalachia Waltz
Star Spangled Banner/Amazing Grace

About Mark O' Connor

Eugenia Zukerman and the Shanghai String Quartet
November 21, 1999

Poetry in Motion
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 musical treasure. Flutist Eugenia Zukerman joins forces with the Shanghai String Quartet for works from China, Classical Europe, and the Victorian era in the United States. 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

About Eugenia Zukerman and the Shanghai String Quartet

Lars Vogt, piano
November 28, 1999

The Language of Passion
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-I. G major; II. Gg minor
Tatanya Komarova: Theme and Variations
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata No. 23 in f minor, Op. 57 "Appassionata"

Listen to Lars Vogt talk with Bill McGlaughlin (RealAudio 3.0; how to listen)
On his life as a pianist
On Beethoven’s "Appasionata" Sonata

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Saint Paul Sunday is produced by American Public Media.