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Latest Listeners’ Club Posts

Vaughan Williams’ “Household Music” (Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes): Music for the Waiting Hours of War January 12, 2026

The Blitz, a bombing campaign conducted by the Nazi German Luftwaffe against the United Kingdom, began in September of 1940 and lasted eight months. Its climax brought a firestorm which became known as the Second Great Fire of London. It was during this dark period, when professional concerts were in limited supply, that Ralph Vaughan Willi […]

Rachmaninov’s Elegie, Op. 3, No. 1: Gary Graffman January 9, 2026

Sergei Rachmaninov was 19 when, in 1892, he composed his set of five solo piano Morceaux de fantasie (“Pieces of fantasy”). The collection was dedicated to Anton Arensky, Rachmaninov’s harmony teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. It includes the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, with its allusion to the Bells of Moscow. Shortly after publicat […]

Prokofiev’s Russian Overture: A Joyous Homecoming January 7, 2026

Even as Stalin’s purges intensified, a homesick Sergei Prokofiev returned permanently to the USSR in 1936. In 1918, he fled Russia, living in the United States and then in Paris. He was lured back with promises of artistic freedom and the ability to travel abroad, both of which ultimately were restricted by Soviet authorities. Composed in 1 […]

Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds: A Drama of Conversing Voices January 5, 2026

In Mozart’s later piano concertos (Nos. 14-27), written for Vienna, the woodwinds step out from the shadows. Previously relegated to accompanying lines which often doubled the strings, the clarinet, flute, oboe, and bassoon now engaged in direct conversation with the solo piano. As with operatic characters, the persona of each voice came in […]

Bach’s “Osanna in Excelsis”: Celebrating a Milestone at The Listeners’ Club January 2, 2026

We begin the year by celebrating a milestone at The Listeners’ Club. This is our 2,000th post. I have enjoyed exploring all of this music with you during these years, and I look forward to continuing the journey. For today, I have selected the brief and festive Osanna in excelsis (“Hosanna in the highest”) which opens the fourth section of […]

“God Bless the Child”: Keith Jarrett Trio December 31, 2025

Jazz standards, music from the great American songbook, had fallen out of fashion when, in 1983, the Keith Jarrett Trio recorded Standards, Vol. 1. The album’s final track is God Bless the Child, a 1939 song by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr. Jarrett’s God Bless the Child blends elements of jazz, rock, gospel, and minimalism. It unfold […]

Remembering Gary Graffman December 29, 2025

Gary Graffman, a renowned American pianist, teacher, and administrator, passed away last Saturday, December 27, at his Manhattan home. He was 97. A child prodigy, Graffman entered the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 7, and studied with Isabelle Vengerova. In 1946, he made his professional debut, appearing with conductor Eugene Orman […]