Classical New Releases

Saturdays, after the opera

Your host Mark Pinto spotlights notable new classical recordings and other additions to WRTI’s ever-expanding classical music library. You’ll hear renowned international performers alongside acclaimed local artists and ensembles in music you already know and music Mark thinks you should. He always puts together a varied, entertaining, and informative mix. Whenever the opera ends on Saturday afternoons, check out Classical New Releases with Mark Pinto!

How She Danced

By Kile Smith • Sep 2, 2016

Mischievous, menacing, or minuetting, it's dancing during our Labor Day Weekend Dance Party and on Now Is the Time, Saturday, September 3rd at 9 pm on WRTI-HD2 and the all-classical stream at wrti.org.

Classical CD Selections: Mark Pinto's Summertime Roundup

By • Aug 23, 2016

WRTI's Mark Pinto fills us in on the latest classical music CDs on (most) Saturdays at 5 pm on Classical New Releases. Here are five newly released recordings he recommends. Take a look!

Song For A Pony And A Blue-Eyed Girl

By • Jul 6, 2016

From its mesmerizing ebb and flow and the purity of the choristers' blend alone, you'd be forgiven for thinking this might be one of Henryk Górecki's many sacred choral works. There's a palpable air of serenity and reflection. But instead, it's a song about a little pony and a blue-eyed girl.

Mark Pinto Recommends New Classical CDs for Spring!

By • May 23, 2016

WRTI's Mark Pinto fills us in on the latest classical music CDs Saturdays at 5 pm on Classical New Releases. Here are five newly released recordings he recommends:

Dett's Bold Music In an Authoritative New Recording

By • Feb 15, 2016

Black History Month would not be complete without acknowledging R. Nathaniel Dett, one of the most successful black composers. An authoritative new recording of his complete piano works by Clipper Erickson shines a welcome light on a major portion of Dett’s output.

Less Than a Week Before Christmas

By Kile Smith • Dec 19, 2015

We're counting down the days on Now Is the Time, Saturday, December 19th at 9 pm. Less Than a Week Before Christmas is David Golub's work for chorus and orchestra: about the cold, about a friend. Morten Lauridsen contemplates the wonder of animals at the nativity manger in one of our time's most-sung pieces, O Magnum Mysterium.

Composer Jennifer Higdon becomes her own poet for Deep in the Night, pondering "this season of love with full brilliant lights." Daron Hagen combines two melodies we recognize with a beautiful one we don't—because he just wrote it—in a work for choir with cello, At Bethlehem Proper. Rounding out the choral works on the program is While All Things Were in Quiet Silence by Ned Rorem.

Two instrumental works find their way in, though. Advent has the same feeling that imbues Yearning, the lovely work for violin and strings by Shulamit Ran, dedicated to Yehudi Menuhin. For solo guitar is the suite of Rick Sowash, helping us count down the days, For an Old Friend at Christmas.

Falling for 5 Newly Released Classical CDs!

By • Dec 3, 2015

WRTI's Mark Pinto, host of the Classical New Releases show, fills you in on the latest and greatest classical music CDs every Saturday at 5 pm. Here are five newly released recordings he recommends:

The Spirit of Copland on Now Is the Time

By Kile Smith • Nov 13, 2015

The spirit of Copland looks over Now Is the Time, Saturday, November 14th at 9 pm. It would be the 115th birthday of the son of Lithuanian immigrants, the son of Brooklyn, who, more than any other composer, defined what is “American” in American music. We think that there is at the very least a little of his spirit in the works on today’s show. 

Two Pianos on Now Is the Time

By Kile Smith • Nov 7, 2015

It’s two pianos, four hands, and more on Now Is the Time, Saturday, November 7th at 9 pm. Lowell Liebermann has two works on the program, starting off with two pianos and eight hands (two belonging to himself), on Daydream and Nightmare. Later we’ll hear his Sonata for Two Pianos.

Halloween on Now Is the Time

By Kile Smith • Oct 26, 2015

The spirit of Halloween hovers over Now Is the Time, Saturday, October 31 at 9 pm. Strings, bells, melodicas softly accompany waning desert sunlight: such is Drift of Rainbows by Dan Visconti. William Moylan's setting of the Yeats poem The Stolen Child tells an Erlkönig-like story: "Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, / For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

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