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.
This week’s program salutes composers active as performers: John Adams, Thomas Adès, Benjamin Britten, George Enescu, Reynaldo Hahn, Howard Hanson, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Richard Strauss. You’ll hear them play, conduct or sing music by Ferruccio Busoni, David Diamond, W. A. Mozart, Jacques Offenbach, William Schuman, Robert Schumann, Johann Strauss II and Richard Wagner.
Some composers are known for a single piece of music, but on today's program you can hear something other than the greatest hit of Hugo Alfvén, Paul Dukas, George Enescu, Englebert Humperdinck, Johann Pachelbel and Amilcare Ponchielli.
October’s programs bring you music inspired by literature, beginning with music that draws on the writings of Sir Walter Scott. The international list of composers includes Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Daniel François Esprit Boieldieu, Carl Czerny, Gaetano Donizetti, Heinrich Marschner, Franz Schubert, and Arthur Sullivan.
October’s programs are bringing you music inspired by literature, this week with music that takes plays, poems, and novels of Victor Hugo as a starting point. The composers are Léo Delibes, César Franck, Franz Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schmidt and Giuseppe Verdi.
