Thursday 22 December
Diversions in Fine Music with Ross Hayes,
Porter, C. Excerpts from Kiss me Kate (1953).
Kathryn Grayson, sop; Ann Miller, voice; Howard Keel, bar; MGM Studio Ch & O/André Previn.
Inspired by the off-stage marital wranglings of the cast of a production of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, Kiss me, Kate turned out to be a triumph for Cole Porter, and the only one of his musicals to run on Broadway for more than 1,000 nights.
Thursday 22 December
Concert Hallwith Ross Hayes
Mozart, W. Symphony no 41 in C, K551, ‘Jupiter’ (1788).
Freiburg Baroque O/René Jacobs.
The set of three symphonies that Mozart composed in quick succession are thought by some musicologists to be a triptych. Certainly, the Jupiter, the last of the three, has no formal introduction, but a grand finale. Whatever the truth, Jupiter was to be the last he composed, and is generally held to be one of the great symphonies of the classical era.
Boxing Day
Concert Hall with Stephen Matthews
Beethoven, L. Piano concerto no 5 in E flat, op 73, ‘Emperor‘ (1809).
Murray Perahia, pf; Concertgebouw O/Bernard Haitink.
Beethoven enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, the sort of aristocrat who could usually expect obsequious deference in practically anyone he met. He would have got little of that from Beethoven, to whom he was both pupil, patron and friend. And he must have been rather a gifted and assiduous piano student, to judge by the concerto that Beethoven wrote for him, and which came to be called the Emperor in his honour. It was the 5th and last of Beethoven’s piano concerti, and it brims with the bold rhetorical certitude of its composer’s heroic period.