A (Musical) Note of Appreciation

Before we move on from Wellington, I wanted to post a short note of appreciation about Radio New Zealand Concert, the public broadcasting station (a companion station features talk radio). According to their website, "Music comprises 85% of air time. Much of this is classical, with additional specialist music programmes covering jazz, contemporary and world music. [The station] actively promotes New Zealand music and composition, providing an important showcase for the best of the country’s performing artists."

You have to love a station that prefaces the morning news with a different bird call each day ("And now, the skylark...").

(A devoted listener concentrates above). Their selections are incredibly eclectic, covering centuries of music, both instrumental and vocal, and not the typical diet of "classical pops" that we are used to in Washington. On New Year's Day, they play the favorite choices of listeners in an all-day program called "Settling the Score". Here is this year's list (Gorecki is actually in the top 20-- I kid you not):

1. Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending
2. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A
3. Handel: Messiah
4. Strauss: Four Last Songs
5. Bruch: Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor
6. Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5, Emperor
7. Bach: Mass in B minor
8. Beethoven: Symphony No 6 in F, Pastoral
9. Allegri: Miserere mei, Deus
10. Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor
11. Bach: Goldberg Variations
12. Gorecki: Symphony No 3, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
13. Dvorák: Symphony 9, From the New World
14. Schubert: String Quintet in C
15. Saint-Saens: Symphony No 3, Organ
16. Mahler: Symphony No 5 in C# minor
17. Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel
18. Bach: St Matthew Passion
19. Schubert: Impromptus D899
20. Sibelius: Symphony No 2 in D minor
21. Mozart: Don Giovanni, Overture
22. Lilburn: Aotearoa Overture
23. Mahler: Symphony No 2 in C minor, Resurrection
24. Sibelius: Finlandia
25. Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue
26. Mozart: Marriage of Figaro, Overture
27. Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor
28. Bizet: Au fond du temple saint, from The Pearl Fishers
29. Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances
30. Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in Eb
31. Chopin: Piano Concerto No 1 in E minor
32. Shostakovich: Symphony No 10 in E minor
33. Tchaikovsky: Gremin’s Aria, from Eugene Onegin
34. Beethoven: Grosse Fuge
35. Finzi: Eclogue

36. Fauré: Requiem
37. Elgar: Introduction & Allegro
38. Handel: Water Music
39. Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D
40. Borodin: Polovtsian Dances
41. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor
42. Schumann: Widmung
43. Mendelssohn: Octet
44. Handel: Let the bright seraphim, from Samson
45. Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio
46. Schumann: Fantasia Op 17
47. Brahms: German Requiem
48. Wagner: Meistersinger, Overture
49. Psathas: Three Psalms
50. Ravel: Daphnis & Chloe

(Posted by Joan on Jan. 14, with fern photo credit to David)