Monday - Friday at 7:00 pm
Beethoven Symphonies: New Recordings Side by Side with Classic Performances, Part 2
Exploring Music is an adventure — an expedition through the world of classical music. We pick a theme each week and follow the music wherever it leads us. Over the years we’ve explored Shakespeare and music, have followed the lives of many composers (a sort of five-part mini-series), and visited the music of various locales — Paris, Venice, Spain, Hungary, the Pacific Rim. Each five-episode program is a musical journey that focuses on a particular, genre, music festival, or classical theme. It’s a sort of Outward Bound for music, with Bill McGlaughlin as our guide to make sure we all get home safe and sound.
Listeners' emailed suggestions have played a very important role in choosing themes. We’ve recorded over two hundred adventures, and the ideas keep turning up. We don’t think we’ll exhaust the possibilities. Exploring Music is familiar and welcoming, and is where you feel at home on your first visit and can’t wait to get back to sample what the series has come up with for its next five-episodes.
The player below features a continuous five hour loop of the most recent Exploring Music episode.
Beethoven Symphonies: New Recordings Side by Side with Classic Performances, Part 2
September 25, 2023
Welcome to the second week of a big Beethoven festival, starting with Beethoven’s sixth symphony. By Friday of this week, we will have heard every single note of the Beethoven symphonies conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin in his new set of the nine Beethoven Symphonies with The Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Bill will also continue to share this new recording side-by-side ...
Beethoven Symphonies: New Recordings Side by Side with Classic Performances, Part 1
September 18, 2023
Bill says in a letter to a dear friend, “Right now, I’m engaged in an interesting project. The conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, who continues as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and has recently become Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, has found time to go to London to record the entire set of nine Beethoven Symphonies with another distinguished ensemble, ...
The Big Five I: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
September 11, 2023
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1891 as part of the local burghers’ relentless pursuit of international recognition for a city growing faster than any in history. Bolstered by the World’s Fair Columbian Exposition in 1893, where America was introduced to Indonesia’s gamelan orchestra, the CSO is among the many cultural institutions founded during this time that continue today. ...
Ravel, Maurice (1875-1937)
October 2, 2023
This week begins our 20th season of Exploring Music! To celebrate, we are revisiting our very first program: the intriguing life and art of French composer Maurice Ravel. Ravel blended his Swiss-Basque heritage as well as early 20th -century jazz to create a unique compositional voice. He clashed with teachers at the Paris Conservatory yet maintained his instincts in the ...
