Music Features

To celebrate WRTI's 60 years on the air, we've selected some of your favorite pieces and put them together in one fabulous collection as our thanks to you - our loyal listeners!Contribute today at the $160 level and we'll thank you with our limited-edition WRTI 60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set with liner notes from your favorite hosts. Pledge Here, and Thanks!Check out the track list below! Click on a title for an audio excerpt and more information. CD 11. Marin Marais (1656-1728): Sonnerie de Saint Genevieve du Mont de Paris2-4. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Brandenburg Concerto No.35. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Ave verum corpus6. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Für Elise7. Beethoven: Romance No.2 in F8. Morten Lauridsen (b.1943): O Magnum Mysterium9. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Tragic Overture10. Franz Schubert (1797-1828): Notturno in EbCD 21. Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Tristan und Isolde. Prelude and Liebestod2. Carl Orff (1895-1982): Carmina Burana. O Fortuna3. Franz Biebl (1906-2001): Ave Maria (Angelus Domini)4. Gerald Finzi (1901-1956): Eclogue for Piano and Strings5. Randall Thompson (1899-1984): Alleluia6. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958): The Lark Ascending7. Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924): Gianni Schicchi. O mio babbino caroCD 31. Aaron Copland (1900-1990): Appalachian Spring2. Stanley Myers (1930-1993): Cavatina (theme from The Deer Hunter)3. Samuel Barber (1910-1981): Adagio for Strings4-9. Arrigo Boito (1842-1918): Mefistofele. Prologue in Heaven

60th Anniversary Classical CD Highlight: Brahms, Tragic Overture

WRTI Your Classical and Jazz Source

Published September 9, 2013 at 4:29 PM EDT

The Tragic Overture of Johannes Brahms, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conducting, is featured on CD 1 in the WRTI 60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set.

"One weeps, the other laughs." So Brahms remarked about his two, contrasting pair of concert overtures—the jovial Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture. The complementary overtures are like the masks of the Greek dramas: Comedy facing one way, Tragedy the other.

Although Brahms read Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Goethe, in the musical tragedy he is not telling a specific story, but instead is invoking a mood, an emotional impression. Two hammer chords announce and reappear throughout the overture. It is a dark and stormy overture.

Contribute today at the $160 level and we'll thank you with our limited-edition WRTI 60th Anniversary CDs. Choose either our Classical (3 CDs) or Jazz (2 CDs) sets with notes from your favorite hosts. Pledge Here, and Thanks!