Theme & Variations introduces a new topic each week, presenting a wide range of music associated with that theme. Drawn from a millennium of Western classical music, the selections are an eclectic mix of familiar favorites and rarities. Theme and Variations is produced locally in Discover Classical's studios by host Joe Law.
As in poker, four of a kind is a winning combination in music, as you’ll hear on today’s program of compositions featuring four identical instruments. The composers are Bernhard Alt, Carl Czerny, Ulysses Kay, Joaquin Rodrigo, Robert Schumann, Giuseppe Valentini and Antonio Vivaldi (as adapted by J. S. Bach).
Greet the arrival of winter with music evoking the season. It’s by William Alwyn, Johann Christoph Graupner, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Cecilia McDowall Vincent Persichetti, Roland Pöntinen and Joachim Raff.
At the end of the year, it’s not unusual to find that all that was planned wasn’t completed. In that spirit, this week’s program brings you unfinished music by J. S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alexander Borodin, Joseph Haydn, Leoš Janáček, Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn, W. A. Mozart, Giacomo Puccini and Franz Schubert.
