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Latest Listeners’ Club Posts

John Adams’ “Hallelujah Junction”: Delirious Dueling Pianos April 16, 2025

“Hallelujah Junction is a small truck stop on Highway 49 in the High Sierras on the California-Nevada border near where I have a small cabin,” explains American composer John Adams. “One can only speculate on its beginnings in the era of prospectors and Gold Rush speculators (although a recent visit revealed that cappuccino is now available […]

Handel’s “I Was Born to Weep”: A Mournful Duet from “Giulio Cesare” April 14, 2025

Handel’s 1724 celebrated opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17 (“Julius Caesar in Egypt”), explores themes of “power, ambition, love, and revenge.” Set during the Roman Civil War of 49-45 BC, it chronicles the love story between Caesar and the cunning seductress Cleopatra. Amid this political drama, Cornelia and her stepson Sesto are deter […]

Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile”: Toots Thielemans and Kenny Werner April 11, 2025

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977), who rose to fame during the era of silent films, is remembered as a legendary English comic actor and filmmaker. He was also a composer of music including the Flower Girl’s theme from the 1931 romantic comedy-drama, City Lights. “He couldn’t read or notate music,” writes Ariane Todes. “Rather, he described the p […]

Michael Torke’s “Javelin”: A Glistening “Sonic Olympiad” April 9, 2025

In August of 1996, Gramophone magazine hailed American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) for writing “some of the most optimistic, joyful and thoroughly uplifting music to appear in recent years.” Two months earlier, the New York Times described Torke as “a master orchestrator whose shimmering timbral palette makes him the Ravel of his gener […]

Remembering John Nelson April 7, 2025

American conductor John Nelson passed away on March 31, 2025. He was 83. Born in San José, Costa Rica, to American missionary parents, Nelson studied at Wheaton College and later at the Juilliard School. He went on to serve as music director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (1976-1987), Opera Theatre of St. Louis (1985-1988), the Cara […]

Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Défunte: A Dreamy Evocation April 4, 2025

A stately, processional dance, the pavane was popular in European courts throughout the Renaissance. With dreamy nostalgia, Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte (“Pavane for a Dead Princess”) evokes visions of these distant times. The brief work was composed in 1899 for solo piano, and orchestrated in 1910. Ravel chose the title […]

Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor: Exploring Dreams and Passions April 2, 2025

Gabriel Fauré’s motivation for writing the Piano Quartet No. 2, in G minor, Op. 45 remains something of a mystery. There was no commission. The work appears to represent the composer’s personal exploration of the magical possibilities regarding an unusual combination of instruments: piano, violin, viola, and cello. Only Mozart, and a handfu […]