Week of April 28, 2025: Baltic Music – Many of us know and love the work of Jean Sibelius, Finland’s greatest musical export, but the countries around the Gulf of Finland have given us a wealth of composers, some better known than others. This week’s theme is music from this land of lakes and islands — isolated, self-contained, and full of beauty. Composers like Erkki Melartin, Leevi Madetoja, Heino Eller, and Arvo Pärt, working in the long shadow of Sibelius, created violin concertos, symphonies, tone poems, choral works, and chamber works. So, what is it that fascinates us about this distant northern region? Perhaps we will sum it up best with a fantastic piece by Uuno Klami called Aurora Borealis.

Week of May 7, 2025: Schubert String Quartets – Bill continues his in-depth look at the string quartet’s history with the music of Franz Schubert. His quartets are unique and remarkable. From his early teens, Schubert loved composing quartets with surprising key relationships and complicated rhythms. These “tone puzzles” can be heard within quartet movements and throughout the complete piece. On Friday’s program Bill adds an extra cello to feature Schubert’s final chamber work, the String Quintet in C Major. This “Cello Quintet” was composed just a few months before Schubert’s death.

Week of May 12, 2025: Tone Poems – Generally, tone poems use music to evoke the essence of a painting, a poem, or other non-musical source. In a literal case of art imitating life, symphonic music is freed from its traditional structures and takes a programmatic turn. Bill invites us to sit with him as he describes and listens to this image-evoking dramatic music in works like Ottorino Respighi’s Gli Uccelli and George Gershwin’s American in Paris.

Week of May 19, 2025: American Masters, Part III – Our series celebrating American composers continues with more innovative works from composers born in the first fifteen years of the 20th century. Lou Harrison with his love of Indonesian Gamelan music, George Rochberg’s tonal 3rd string quartet performed by the Concord Quartet, then on to Franz Waxman’s orchestral music, and Bill ends the week with a full hour of music from the quintessential New Yorker, Morton Gould. Don’t miss the treat of the week; Leroy Anderson’s “The Typewriter,” performed by the St. Louis Symphony with John Cassica soloing on the typewriter.