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: Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending

WRTI Your Classical and Jazz Source | By Mark Pinto

Published September 9, 2013 at 10:28 PM EDT

The Lark Ascending, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, performed by David Greed, violin, and the English Northern Philharmonia conducted by David Lloyd-Jones, is featured on CD 2 in the WRTI60th Anniversary Classical 3-CD set.

Has there ever been a musical portrait of such beauty, grace, and tranquility? Inspired by George Meredith’s poem, this gorgeously meditative piece, originally written for violin and piano, was rearranged for violin and orchestra by Vaughan Williams in 1920. Between folksong-like orchestral interludes, the solo violinist takes flight playing soft, fluttering ascending and descending pentatonic (five-note) scale patterns, “ever winging up and up.”

Vaughan Williams’s free use of rhythm in the cadenzas enables the soloist to “lift us with him as he goes,” vividly depicting the song and motion of the lark as he takes wing out over the horizon.

Contribute today and keep your essential composers, like Ralph Vaughan Williams, on the air on WRTI. Pledge Here, and Thanks!