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Latest Listeners’ Club Posts

Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, “Gassenhauer”: A Clarinet and a Catchy Tune August 11, 2025

Composed in 1797, the Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11 is spirited, fun-loving music of the 26 year old Beethoven. It is scored for clarinet, cello, and piano. At the time, the still-emerging clarinet was a novelty. Beethoven was impressed with the sound of Viennese clarinetist Franz Josef Bähr (1770-1819). The Trio was written for Bähr, and de […]

Remembering Eddie Palmieri August 8, 2025

Eddie Palmieri, the pianist, composer, band leader, and innovator of Latin music, passed away last Wednesday, August 6 at his home in New Jersey. He was 88. Born in East Harlem to a Puerto Rican immigrant family and raised in the South Bronx, Palmieri was exposed to jazz in the New York City public school system. As a child, he frequently a […]

Handel’s “Gloria”: A Musical Treasure, Lost and Found August 6, 2025

In 2001, a long lost work by Handel was miraculously discovered. The manuscript for Handel’s Gloria in excelsis Deo had been hiding in plain sight in the library of London’s Royal Academy of Music. Bound in a collection of Handel arias that had been owned by singer William Savage (1720-1789), the manuscript was not in the composer’s hand. I […]

Schumann’s Second Symphony: Juraj Valčuha and the Houston Symphony August 4, 2025

Last February, we explored Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, a work unified by a single motivic thread which runs through its four movements. Emerging as a mystical trumpet call in the Symphony’s opening, this motto (an ascending fifth) rings out as a triumphant statement in the Symphony’s concluding moments. For Schumann, a comp […]

Stravinsky’s Serenade in A: Nachtmusik for the Twentieth Century August 1, 2025

Nachtmusik (“night music”), a light serenade intended for evening entertainment, was the party music of the 18th century. Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik is the most famous example. With his Serenade in A for solo piano, composed in Vienna in September of 1925, Igor Stravinsky brought the form into the 20th century. Stravinsky commented tha […]

Poulenc’s “Gloria”: Playful and Exuberant July 30, 2025

When Francis Poulenc’s Gloria was first performed in 1961, some critics derided it as “sacrilegious.” With his setting of the liturgical text, scored for chorus, soprano solo, and large orchestra, Poulenc followed in the footsteps of composers such as Vivaldi and Handel. But here, the exalted text is approached, not with solemnity, but with […]

Saint-Saëns’ Fantaisie for Violin and Harp: Sunny and Exotic July 28, 2025

Camille Saint-Saëns’ Fantaisie for Violin and Harp, Op. 124 is filled with charm, virtuosity, and dreamy exoticism. The 72-year-old Saint-Saëns was vacationing in the city of Bridger in the Italian Riviera when, in 1907, he composed this sparkling miniature. He dedicated the work to a musical duo made up of two sisters, harpist Clara Eissle […]