Hammered
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Music For The Uncommon Mind
This week on the program we're balancing Aimard's high note-per-second repertoire with meditative, slow-moving, and delicate repertoire in conjunction with our Spring Fund Drive.
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Pierre-Laurent Aimard's Contrapuntal World
Few pianists have impacted contemporary music more profoundly than the Frenchman Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Hear his insights and performances of Ives, Ligeti and Messiaen all week on Hammered!
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In Their Own Words
When in doubt return to the source, especially when that source is Elliott Carter, David Lang, or other promoters of their own music. This week we let the artists do the talking with interspersed introductions by some of the decade's most prominent composers and performers.
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Runs in the Family
Family ties resemble teacher-student relations in weird ways. A student's music might "resemble" a teacher's style, or sometimes try very hard to disassociate itself. This week we sort through the branches of four different musical family trees.
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Studying the Etude
Taking a page out of the great Nicholas Hodges' recent programatic playbook, this week we re-contextualize a handful of classic etudes by throwing in fistfuls of freshly composed ones, some so difficult only a machine can play them!
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Frederic Rzewski Celebrates 75
The composer-pianist tradition prevails in the early 21st century through Frederic Rzewski, who turns 75 on Saturday. Host Jed Distler returns to pay tribute to one of new music's iconic veterans.
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Group Dynamics
This week on Hammered! we explore the mountains of chamber music that includes piano(s), or, otherwise put, music for piano+. Hear music from Thomas Ades, Ezequiel Vinao, Benjamin Broening and many more.
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Portrait Of The Artist
As a follow-up to our pianist profile series last fall, Hammered! presents a week's worth of hour-long musical portraits of some of the great pianists of the contemporary music world, including performances from the late Charles Rosen.
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Bach To The Future
Echoing the around-the-clock programming on WQXR's Bach 360 Festival, this week on Hammered!, we allow the great Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach guide the musical conversation.
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And Now For Something Completely Different ...
The timbral language of the harpsichord intriguingly connects the modern and pre-Classical eras. We explore that lineage by juxtaposing music from the Baroque era with more recently written scores, all composed for the harpsichord.
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Stop, I'm Feeling Cyclical
Almost all cogent musical structures are built on some kind of repetition or cycle. This week on Hammered! we decode the musical cycles behind some of the century's most fascinating architectural blueprints.
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Conceptions of the Concept Album
The mark of a well-constructed album is that its individual parts form a greater whole, each work elevated through the connections made with adjacent tracks. Tune in this week on Hammered! for five such albums.
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Also Sprach A Living Composer!
A counterpoint of instructive voices host this week on Hammered! as we pass the mic among a collection of composers who will introduce their own works for piano. Hear their musical secrets all week.
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Songs With / Out Words
Differentiating the piano from other percussion instruments is partly, and perhaps most meaningfully, its ability to imitate the human voice.?This week the piano takes center stage in a series of one-instrument art song recitals.
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When The Piano Isn't Enough ...
Late in his life, the famed Italian pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni felt so straightjacketed by the tonal system that he said one of the only viable method of escape was the invention of new sounds through electronic instruments.
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Studying the Etude
Taking a page out of the great Nicholas Hodges' recent programatic playbook, this week we re-contextualize a handful of classic etudes by throwing in fistfuls of freshly composed ones, some so difficult only a machine can play them!
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All Things Ecstatic
The multi-dimension and ultra-collaborative Ecstatic Music Festival kicks off this Friday. To get into the mood, we not only survey music from the festival's composers, musicians and ensembles, but more generally embrace all things ecstatic.
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Born from Silence
What is it about the opening measures of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring that generates such intense musical magnetism? We explore how the starts of pieces impact the music that follows.
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Composing With The Nature Of Sound
Gerard Grisey had an almost tactile relationship to sound. This week on Hammered! we take a deep dive into the music of the spectral school.
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Postnuclear Winterscenario
Here we are, pre-New Year and post-Mayan "apocalypse", confronted with another expiration of a calendar year. This week we ring in the New Year with the music of George Crumb.
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The Technicolor Music of Olivier Messiaen
It has become a holiday tradition to indulge in Olivier Messiaen's two-hour holiday season epic Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jesus. Tune in at 10 AM this week for four movements per day of this twenty movement Q2 Music Holiday Classic.
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Portrait of the Artist
Hammered! presents a week's worth of hour-long musical portraits of some of the great pianists of the contemporary music world, including performances from the late Charles Rosen.
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Remembrance Of Things Past
It has been a rough Fall for contemporary music, enduring the passing of William Duckworth in September, Elliott Carter last month and most recently, Jonathan Harvey, who died last week at age 73.
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Celebrating Cage and Debussy
Two composers of the twentieth century turned super old this year: John Cage (100 this month) and Claude Debussy (150 last August). We pay homage to these titans with alternating selections from each's piano oeuvre.
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Sprouts, Complexity, and Transcendence
Beethoven's influence cannot be measured. This week on Hammered! pianist-composer Michael Brown features his impact on different musical forms, the composer's revolutionary spirit, and transcendent late works.
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The Ludwig van Beethoven Complex
Pianist Lisa Moore hears Beethoven's legacy riding through fast and clear in the work of modern masters from around Europe, Australia and North America.
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Tributes to a Constellation of American Individualists
Composer-pianist Jed Distler returns to host a week of wide-ranging keyboard(s) repertoire, including tributes to the late Elliott Carter and Aaron Copland and obscure recordings from Igor Markevitch, Lois V Vierk and George Perle.
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Sonatas For All Ages
The sonata is a shifty and elusive form. It contracts, expands and reconfigures to hold any type of musical material, so much so that it is perhaps most accurate to evoke the sonata's original and most basic meaning, simply "to sound."
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Living For The Live Performance
This week on Hammered!, in coordination with our Fall Pledge Drive, we'll hear highlights from our vast archive of live piano performances.
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When The Piano Isn't Enough ...
Italian pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni said one of the only viable methodes of escape was the invention of new sounds through electronic instruments. We explore that prophetic look into the future and listen to the rich repertoire for piano and electronics.
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Composing With The Nature Of Sound
Gerard Grisey had an almost tactile relationship to sound, saying "I start more with the physical aspect of things, the physical aspect of sound, the quality of spectrums" before composing. This week we try to understand what that actually means with a deep dive into the spectral school.
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Solid Gould
Glenn Gould, one of history's greatest and most fiercely individual musicians, would have been 80 years old on Tuesday. To celebrate we've programmed an entire hour's worth of solid Gould, and, the rest of the week, profile four other titans of the contemporary piano world.
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Celebrating Cage and Debussy
Two influential composers of the twentieth century turned super old this year: John Cage (100 this month) and Claude Debussy (150 last August). This week on Hammered! we pay homage to these modern musical titans with alternating selections from each's vast piano oeuvre.
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One Track Mind
This week we hear five consecutive cases of works that require an extended temporal space to achieve a more slowly evolving mode of expression. Monday, a sub-sixty minute work by Peteris Vasks called The Seasons, introduced by the composer.
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Palpably Organic: Keyboard Glass
This week Lisa Moore guides you through recent decades piano solos like Etude No. 2, Metamorphosis IV and V, Mad Rush and more! These are juxtaposed with music by Glass contemporaries, teachers and mentors.
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Palpably Organic: Keyboard Glass
This week Lisa Moore guides you through recent decades piano solos like Etude No. 2, Metamorphosis IV and V, Mad Rush and more! These are juxtaposed with music by Glass contemporaries, teachers and mentors.
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Post-Minimalism For A Post-Celebration
The champagne may be flat but we're still riding the celebratory wave of birthday boy Philip Glass's 75th by exploring the fertile genre of post-minimalism that he helped inspire.
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Group Dynamics
This week on Hammered! we explore the mountains of chamber music that includes piano(s), or, otherwise put, music for piano+. Hear music from Thomas Ades, Ezequiel Vinao, Benjamin Broening and many more.
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Family Trees
Did you know that Stephen Sondheim was a pupil of Milton Babbitt? Or that Cage studied with Schoenberg? This week we tease out the often unexpected musical relationships.
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Returning To The Source
This week on Hammered! we hear Schoenberg's five incomparable piano works alongside the music of composers he may - or may not - have impacted.
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Nothing But New Newer Newest
Part of listening to contemporary music is exploring the musical tributaries resulting from a single body of music. This week we consider the new and unfamiliar, offering keyboard music by known and yet-known composers.
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The Road Less Traveled
This week on Hammered! we queue up portions of Frederic Rzewski's epic musical novel The Road - in addition to a few driving playlists of our own - and provide five discrete soundtracks built for summer travel.
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Music For A Summer Evening
Nothing accompanies a sweated-through T-shirt and an oppressively humid summer evening like George Crumb, right? Get your dog day's musical antidote all week on Hammered! with summertime music not written by George Gershwin.
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Conceptions of the Concept Album
The mark of a well-constructed album is that its individual parts form a greater whole, each work elevated through the connections made with adjacent tracks. Tune in this week on Hammered! for five such albums.
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Bruce Brubaker Revisited
Few pianists have proven themselves to be more programmatically inventive and musically provocative than our June 2011 pianist-in-residence Bruce Brubaker. Tune in for a look back into the illuminating, idiosyncratic and altogether fascinating curatorial mind of this New England Conservatory faculty member and new-music Jedi.
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Back To Bach
Conductor, pianist and one-liner machine Hans van Bulow called Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier the "Old Testament" of music (Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonatas were the "New"). This week at 10 am (new time!) on Hammered! we explore Bach's far-reaching influence on contemporary piano music by returning to the source.
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Piano Plus
How does a composer even think to write a piano concerto today when the masterpieces of Mozart, Brahms and Ravel are your compositional context? This week on Hammered! we hear some of the great creations of this historical dare.
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Post-Minimalism For A Post-Celebration
The champagne may be flat but we're still riding the celebratory wave of birthday boy Philip Glass's 75th by exploring the fertile genre of post-minimalism that he helped inspire.
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From The Sublime To The Knife's Edge
This week we celebrate the sound, resonance, textures, counterpoint, drive, volume and sheer hutzpah of music for two, four, five and six pianos. Former Bang on a Can pianist Lisa Moore hosts.
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One Track Mind
Sometimes a composer simply requires an extended temporal space to achieve a more slowly evolving mode of expression. This week on Hammered! we hear five such cases.
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Family Trees
Did you know that Stephen Sondheim was a pupil of Milton Babbitt? Or that John Cage studied with Arnold Schoenberg? This week on Hammered! we tease out the often unexpected musical relationships between some of the century's greatest pedagogues and their students.
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Returning To The Source
Without question Arnold Schoenberg is one of the great composers of the twentieth century. Many would argue, in fact, that musical modernism began with his music. This week on Hammered! we hear the composer's five incomparable piano works alongside the music of composers he may -- or may not -- have impacted.
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Two's Company: Piano Pairings
This week's programmatic sorbet on Hammered features unlikely pairings: Bach and Rzewski, Beethoven and Ligeti. Find out what these jarring relationships say about the music at hand.
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Stop, I'm Feeling Cyclical
One thing that became clear during last week's Bach-inspired program of passacaglias, chaconnes and variations is that almost all cogent musical structures have some kind of repetition or cycle. But of what? This week on Hammered! we decode the musical cycles behind some of the century's most fascinating architectural blueprints.
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Back To Bach
Conductor, pianist and one-liner machine Hans van Bulow called Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier the "Old Testament" of music (Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonatas were the "New"). This week at 10 am (new time!) on Hammered! we explore Bach's far-reaching influence on contemporary piano music by returning to the source.
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Jeremy Denk Hosts Hammered!
This month on Hammered! we invite three pianists to curate episodes focused on the 20th and 21st century's revolutionary composers. Listen in 11 am and 11 pm this week for episodes hosted by Jeremy Denk.
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Kathleen Supov Hosts Hammered!
This month on Hammered! Q2 Music invites three pianists to curate episodes focused on the past century's most revolutionary musicians. Listen in 11 am and pm all this week for episodes hosted by the fearless Kathleen Supov.
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Pledging Allegiance To American Mavericks
Thank you to those that have pledged support during our Winter Fund Drive! It's because of those contributions that we can bring you festivals like American Mavericks, which is a whole other conversation (!), but for Hammered! means two days focused on the music of Julius Eastman and Morton Feldman.
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Also Sprach A Living Composer!
A counterpoint of instructive voices host this week on Hammered! as we pass the mic among a collection of composers who will introduce their own works for piano. Hear their musical secrets all week at 11 am and pm.
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Loops, Ladders and Wind-Up Birds
Among diverse cast of characters informing Brooklyn-based composer Ryan Anthony Francis's musical language are author Haruki Murakami, artist M.C. Escher and poet Wilhelm Muller. Hear what they've told him this week at 11 am and pm on Hammered!
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Piano Plus
How does a composer even think to write a piano concerto today when the masterpieces of Mozart, Brahms and Ravel are your compositional context? This week on Hammered! we hear some of the great creations of this historical dare.
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Post-Minimalism For A Post-Celebration
The champagne may be flat but we're still riding the celebratory wave of birthday boy Philip Glass's 75th by exploring the fertile genre of post-minimalism that he helped inspire. Tune in this week at 11 am and pm for reworkings, reinventions and revampings of Glass-brand minimalism.
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The Pulse Of Post-Classical
We agree with Time Out magazine: the 2012 Ecstatic Music Festival is "overflowing with awesome". Tune into Q2 Music, the festival's digital venue, for week long Ecstatic-themed programming on Hammered!, including live tracks from last year's Music Marathon and performances from this year's headliners.
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Self-Portrait
This week, Hammered! revisits Sleeping Giant's recent residency on Hammered! with Monday hosted by composer-pianist Timothy Andres and curation throughout the week from its other members.
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But First, A Mazurka...
Despite the immense stylistic variety of Polish music from the last fifty years, many of these works demonstrate a keen sense of historical context, nodding appreciatively through the centuries. Tune in for the piano course to this week's Muzyka Nowa smorgasbord and explore the keyboard music of Polish modernism. In context.
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Tuned to a New Frequency
New-music junkies thrive on hearing new sounds, on experiencing novel, sonic worlds. Really, is there anything more exciting than listening to a piece for the first time?
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Ask And Ye Shall Receive
You might think that your thoughtful criticisms and carefully considered suggests are simply lost in cyber ether upon clicking submit, but we actually heed and thrive on your comments. So, this week on Hammered!, you're the programmers!
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WQXR c/o New York Public Radio
160 Varick Street, 8th floor
New York, NY 10013(646) 829-4000 -
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