What do Duke Ellington, United Airlines, and the K Pop group Red Velvet share in common? They've all covered George Gershwin's piano concerto, Rhapsody in Blue. First premiered in 1924, the piece became an immediate hit for the way it blended American jazz with the European symphonic tradition. Gershwin had a number of successes as a composer in his day—his ... Show More
Mar 10
Harry Styles loses himself to dance
The dance floor is where Harry Styles does his therapy, and this album is the session notes. Four years after Harry's House, Styles returns with Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally, a record built from minimal ingredients: live drums, Moog bass, nylon guitar, and synth sequence ... Show More
43m 38s
Mar 3
Can Bruno Mars counterprogram his way to another hit album?
Bruno Mars is back with a new album called The Romantic, his first solo release since 2016’s 24k Magic. At first listen, the lead single, “I Just Might,” sounds like an outtake from 2021’s collaborative album with Anderson Paak, the Philly soul-inspired An Evening with Silk Sonic ... Show More
44m 52s
Feb 24
Charli XCX’s "Wuthering Heights" fever dream
Emerald Fennell's new adaptation of Emily Brontë's 1847 gothic romance "Wuthering Heights" is the most talked-about film of the year. But for pop lovers, the soundtrack is the real event: Charli xcx, asked to write one song, ended up recording an entire album for the movie while ... Show More
48m 13s
Feb 2024
Faure's Piano Quartet
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1880, a quartet for piano and strings was premiered in Paris, with its composer, 24-year-old Gabriel Fauré, at the keyboard. Now in 1880, many Parisians knew two things about Fauré: first, that he was a talented pupil of Camille Saint-Saens; and second ... Show More
2 m
Oct 2023
Premiere of Brahms' 'Schicksalslied'
Synopsis
On today’s date in 1871, Hermann Levi conducted the premiere of a new choral work by Johannes Brahms titled Schicksalslied, or Song of Destiny. It’s a setting of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, contrasting in its first part the blissful Greek gods on Mount Olympus and in ... Show More
2 m