Open Air for Tuesday, November 3, 2009
As a grown-up lullaby, it had some drawbacks. Almost as if, just as the insomniac was finally falling asleep, the composer shouts, "Are you asleep yet?!!"
Call it a joke between friends. Though Count Keyserling used a go-between to request the music from the Leipzig Kapellmeister, he knew the famous Bach. And Bach felt he knew the aristocrat well enough to incorporate popular songs, jack-in-the-box surprises and other breaks of decorum in what was supposed to be a musical sleeping pill.
The result was named after the go-between, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. And we'll hear Bach's Goldberg Variations played by that serial smasher of decorum, Glenn Gould, tonight on Open Air
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L'embarquement pour Cythere
Francis Poulenc
Seta Tanyel & Jeremy Brown, pianos
Chandos
8519
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8:03 p.m.
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Four Brief Prayers for St. Francis of Assisi
Francis Poulenc
Chanticleer
Chanticleer
8801
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8:04 p.m.
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Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin No. 1 in g: IV
J.S. Bach
Sergiu Luca, violin
Nonesuch
73030
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8:12 p.m.
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Violin Concerto in a
Sergiu Luca, violin; Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra/Leonard Slatkin
Antonin Dvorak
Nonesuch
79052
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8:23 p.m.
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So You Want to Write a Fugue?
Glenn Gould
Juilliard Quartet; Elizabeth Benson-Guy, soprano; Donald Gramm, bass
Sony
60686
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8:51 p.m.
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The Goldberg Variations
J.S. Bach
Glenn Gould, piano
Sony
87703
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9:00 p.m.
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Wiegenlied
Johannes Brahms
Anne-Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano; Bengt Forsberg, piano
DG
429 727
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9:52 p.m.
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Sarabande from Violin Partita in b
J.S. Bach, arr. Stokowski
Stokowski Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski
EMI
69072
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9:56 p.m.