Monday - Friday at 7:00 pm
Musical Landscapes
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. Listen to the past two weeks of Exploring Music here.
Musical Landscapes
October 3, 2022
This week Exploring Music paints landscapes with music. We start in an outdoor café, listening to Luciano Pavarotti sing Augustin Lara’s song about the Andalusian city Granada. Then our tour walks through the gardens with Manuel De Falla and rides the sea’s waves with Debussy. We’ll climb the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains to listen to Pepe Ramero play ...
Gershwin, George
September 26, 2022
Join us for a week-long look at the life and soulful music of George Gershwin, including his Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, and Porgy and Bess. A true American original, George Gershwin transcended musical categorization as he composed in almost any form: Broadway musicals, popular songs, symphonic works, and jazz. In only 38 years of life, Gershwin followed ...
String Quartets from Fibich to Sibelius
September 19, 2022
This week Bill broadens his considerations of the string quartet with an emphasis on lesser-known, late-19th century composers. He begins with Poème for violin and piano by Czech composer Zdeněk Fibich. Bill says “the music is familiar but the composer maybe not so familiar”: Poème was the score for one of the first choreographies by George Balanchine. Fibich was among ...
Vaughan Williams, Ralph
October 10, 2022
Composer of nine masterful symphonies, editor of the English Hymnal, an ambulance driver in WWI, and great-nephew to Charles Darwin, Ralph Vaughan Williams was a prolific and intriguing figure who was at the vanguard of English music in the early 20th century. This week, we’ll look at his life and enjoy his music.
Carnegie Hall, Part 1
October 17, 2022
Bill joins Gino Francesconi, director of Carnegie Hall’s Archives and Rose Museum, to take listeners backstage for an intimate view of the hall, its history, and the legendary performers who have appeared there. From the world premiere of Dvorak’s New World Symphony in 1893, to U.S. debuts by Jascha Heifetz, Igor Stravinsky, and Béla Bartók, to appearances by artists and ...
Carnegie Hall, Part 2
October 24, 2022
Bill and Carnegie Hall’s Archivist Gino Francesconi continue touring backstage for a view of the three concert venues, the hall’s history, and the legendary performers who have appeared there. Carnegie Hall has been the stage for thousands of premieres from all genres of music and spoken word. We will listen to artists’ stories and hear some of the great ones ...
