GeezerVison

Wunderkind Erich Korngold has been on Joe and Jens’ minds since the very first episode of their podcast series. Now twenty-seven episodes in, they finally turn their attention to exploring this composer’s remarkable career, focusing in particular on the classical side of the man who helped shape the Hollywood sound. Other Episodes: Classical Discoveries – Read More …

It’s Classical Discoveries time and it’s back to film music, finally! (For Joe, anyway) This time, Jens and Joe delve into the world of Prokofiev as film composer, on whether he’s more or less famous for writing film scores than Shostakovich, and why. Along the way, they explore his incidental music, where Prokofiev had set Read More …

Is modern classical music ugly? Why bother with contemporary music at all? Jens and Joe take the example of Aribert Reimann, fearsomely modern on his own, and discuss the merits (and lack thereof) of tackling his re-scoring of Mendelssohn’s Songs for String Quartet – and what it means in the greater context of attaining a Read More …

In this episode of Classical Discoveries, Jens and Joe tackle Bohuslav Martinů. Specifically, they look at the six (minimally strange) symphonies of this (endlessly fascinating) composer, which he wrote in the U.S. for the great American symphony orchestras. How ever did the lazy boy who grew up in a church tower in rural Bohemia come Read More …

Easter is coming – and it coincides this year with “C.P.Eppreciation Day!” What’s that, you ask? Let Jens and Joe lead you on an egg hunt for sacred gems among the works of Johann Sebastian’s second oldest son, Carl Philip Emmanuel – C.P.E. – Bach. Along the way, they try to demystify the challenges that Read More …

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Orfeo label (C621061A) is the second movement of English composer William Walton’s Cello Concerto, a work that provided a rich, atmospheric display vehicle for Read More …

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Dynamic label (CDS517) is Mantovana, a short piece by Italian guitarist/composer Francesco Corbetta. Born around 1615, Corbetta served at a number of European courts, Read More …

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Capriccio label (C71128) is by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf (1735–1792), a leading musical personality in Weimar for nearly 30 years, initially as organist and eventually Read More …

Each Friday we select a track from a Naxos Music Group album released twenty years ago to provide the accompaniment for five minutes of your downtime. This week’s pick from the Ondine label (ODE1089-2) is from the Bassoon Concerto by Finnish composer, journalist and writer Jouni Kaipainen (b. 1956). The second movement’s concept derives from Read More …

When you hear ‘Engelbert Humperdinck’, you’ll invariably either think of the King of Romance’s hit ballad “Release Me” (in which case you’ve got the wrong Humperdinck, as far as we are concerned) or of the King of Romantic Children’s Opera’s greatest hit “Hansel & Gretel”. Well, in their latest podcast, Jens and Joe will try Read More …