Past Articles by Tom Huizenga
|
Gods And Monsters: 5 Unforgettable Wagner Moments William Berger, author of Wagner Without Fear, guides us through five of his favorite Wagner moments — musical episodes that keep the composer's extraordinary dramas in our lives today. |
|
Moms In Opera: Women On The Edge Just try rummaging through the standard repertoire to find a tender scene between a mother and child and you'll come up stymied. Why are so many operatic moms depicted as murderous women on the verge of a nervous breakdown? |
|
Music We Love Now: Three Must-Hear Piano Albums The young Ingolf Wunder shines in Mozart, Jorge Federico Osorio reintroduces a Mexican classic and Elisveta Blumina reveals the gentle side of Valentine Silvestrov in three compelling new piano recordings. |
|
First Listen: David Lang, 'Death Speaks' With help from Franz Schubert and four stellar musicians, David Lang ponders the afterlife. Hear the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer's new album in its entirety. |
|
The Conductor Who Gained Power By Giving It Up What impressed most about Colin Davis wasn't his extraordinarily broad view of music and art, his eloquent turns of phrase, or even his naughty sense of humor, but it was instead something less tangible — his sense of self. |
|
Maria Callas On The Move: A Diva Does D.C. After a week on the town, with visits to the White House, the Opera House and Ben's Chili Bowl, NPR Music's Diva-in-Residence (and cardboard cut-out) makes her way to our brand-new headquarters. |
  In a recent lecture on the arts, the eclectic cellist made a plea for the power of diversity. When artists from divergent disciplines commingle, Ma says, it creates a "time and space for transformation." |
|
Vespers, Habaneras And Early Morning Walks: New Classical Albums From the radiant voices of a Latvian choir to a fresh young string quartet and a seasoned symphony, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Jacki Lyden spin an eclectic mix of new classical releases. |
|
Live At Carnegie Hall: Jonathan Biss And The Elias String Quartet In an art form filled with tortured souls, Robert Schumann stands out — even more than 150 years after his death. Hear one of America's finest young pianists and an emerging English string quartet play music by the visionary composer, as well as music by Mozart and artists Schumann influenced. |
|
Marches Madness: Rubbing Aladdin's Lamp  Carl Nielsen could have used a little more luck after he composed stunningly original music for a theatrical version of the Aladdin story. The director cut and jumbled the score. But in the end, the Danish composer rescued his music by turning it into a popular suite. |
|
Marches Madness: From Trash Can To Flagpole  With its bright beat and direct quote from The Star Spangled Banner, Edwin Bagley's National Emblem march is an American favorite — that almost made the trash bin. |
|
Marches Madness: Mahler's Twisted Nursery Rhyme  The idea of transforming the children's song "Frère Jacques" into a funeral march was both creepy and ingenious, making Gustav Mahler's very first symphony a bold game changer. |
|
Music We Love Now: New Albums Of Bach, Beethoven And Brahms New albums of music by the "Three Bs" prove that going back to the basics has its advantages. Hear a sweet-toned violin concerto, an audacious piano sonata and a solo cello suite caressed by a lute. |
|
Marches Madness: Freshly Squeezed Oranges In 4/4 Time  If you fell in love with oranges, would you scour the world to find them? Prokofiev's absurdist, citrus-scented opera features zany plot lines, curious characters and one little march that made it big. |
|
Tell Us: Are Ballet And Opera Elitist? London's Covent Garden opera house hosted a debate Monday about the barriers between opera and ballet and the people. What's your opinion? |
|
Marches Madness: Walk Like An Egyptian  In an art form notorious for its excesses, Verdi's Aida can take the bigger-is-better approach to nearly laughable extremes. But its grand "Triumphal March" is built on a simple foundation. |
|
First Listen: Simone Dinnerstein & Tift Merritt, 'Night' Opposites attract in Night, a genre-blurring album that pairs alt-country singer-songwriter Tift Merritt with classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein. There's a solemn intimacy to these songs, and how they're delivered, that speaks one-on-one. |
|
Marches Madness: Off With His Head!  In Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, brass snarl and winds shriek like feral beasts in an opium-fueled dream of passion, murder and execution by guillotine. |
|
Marches Madness: Puppets And A Funeral  We can thank Alfred Hitchcock for giving new life to Charles Gounod's quirky little march about dueling puppets, funeral processions and a few refreshing cocktails. |
|
'Funeral March Of A Marionette': Puppet Music Promoted By Hitchcock   We can thank Alfred Hitchcock for giving new life to Charles Gounod's quirky little march about dueling puppets, funeral processions and a few refreshing cocktails. |
|
'Thank You For That Gift': Memories Of Van Cliburn From Medalists Van Cliburn competition winners remember the great pianist, who died last month at age 78. See silver medalist Joyce Yang play for Cliburn — and his unforgettably moving response. |
|
Benedict And Beethoven: The Outgoing Pope's Musical Life  With a reputation for conservative views, the pontiff's musical tastes run, not surprisingly, straight down the center of the meat and potatoes repertoire. |
|
The Operatic Potential Of DSK, A Modern Don Giovanni Sometimes real-life stories are so operatic you couldn't make them up. Could Dominique Strauss-Kahn's fall from grace make a compelling opera? |
|
Measures Of Affection: Five Musical Love Letters For centuries composers have written love letters, but not by scratching words on paper. Their language is music. Hear five passionate outpourings by the likes of Mahler, Elgar, Janáček and Peter Lieberson. |
|
Max Richter In Concert: Reimagining Vivaldi Like some of us, Max Richter grew tired of Vivaldi's warhorse The Four Seasons. But instead of writing off the piece forever, Richter rewrote it. He blended Vivaldi's work with his own music, tucking in some light electronics for a modern makeover. Watch him perform it with violinist Daniel Hope. |
|
What is it about choral music that hits on such a basic human level? The answer may be found in this performance by Cantus, the male a cappella ensemble from Minnesota, which sings three widely divergent songs from the heart. |
|
A Little Part Of Poulenc In All Of Us  Poulenc wrote music that popped like corks from Champagne, dizzy with the sounds of Parisian music halls and jazz. Yet he also channeled great emotional depth and spirituality. On the 50th anniversary of his death, we remember the brilliant contradictions within the French composer. |
|
Reneé Fleming And Susan Graham At Carnegie Hall Two opera stars will conjure the intimate atmosphere of the late 19th-century Parisian salon, telling stories and singing songs by Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Debussy. Both artists love singing in French and the language falls beautifully on their voices. |
|
Musical Google Earth: Composer Paul Moravec's Sense Of Place The Pulitzer Prize winner has written pieces inspired by places as far flung as Venice, New Hampshire and a monastery in the mountains of Northern Spain. These dramatically diverse locations spawned picturesque musical ideas ranging from classical to jazz to klezmer. |
|
Obama's 'Hope And Virtue' Distilled In A Song "With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come." Those words, from President Obama's first inaugural address, have been set to music on a new album. Celebrating the American Spirit also features Broadway star Kelli O'Hara singing Bernstein. |
|
Who Needs Drugs When You've Got Music? We all know about the power of music — the songs that make you happy or trigger a poignant memory. But once in a while music can be even more intoxicating, as in a stunning performance that will be broadcast live to movie theaters worldwide this Saturday. |
|
Symphonic Resolutions: What's On Your Classical Music Wish List? What can composers, performers and audiences do to help the music they love thrive? Join a discussion — with prominent musicians like Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Kevin Puts and Jennifer Higdon and conductor Marin Alsop — to help find solutions to classical music's many persistent problems. |
|
Echoes Of 2012: A Classical Music Quiz Were you paying attention to what was happening in classical music in 2012? Here's a pop quiz. Try your hand at nailing the big and not so big stories of the past year. |
|
In January's Drought, Three Albums Worth Waiting For January is a slow month for new albums. To tide curious listeners over, we offer an exclusive sampler of musical treats soon to come — ranging from opera star Jonas Kaufmann in Wagner to the unlikely pairing of a Bach pianist and a rising singer-songwriter. |
|
Whatever Happened To The Classical Christmas Album? The flow of good classical Christmas albums seems to have slowed to a trickle. And that's got one holiday listener longing for holiday albums from years past, from Jessye Norman's Christmastide, Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite and carols led by Robert Shaw. |
|
When A Thoughtful Cellist Meets An Imaginative Composer Cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist-composer Thomas Adès play together with uncommon instinct and energy. They shine in a recital of disparate pieces, culminating in a world-premiere recording of an eclectic new work by Adès. |
|
Outspoken Russian Diva And Muse Galina Vishnevskaya Dies At 86  The soprano, whose life unfolded with more tragic and triumphant twists and turns than any opera plot was celebrated for her electrifying performances and her dissident political views. |
|
Musicians Remember Elliott Carter  Musicians who loved Elliott Carter and his music remember the great composer (who died last month at age 103) by discussing pieces of his music that touched them personally. They show how his long professional relationships with performers illuminated the conversational complexity of his music. |
|
Soprano Lisa Della Casa, Strauss And Mozart Specialist, Dies At 93  The Swiss soprano will be remembered especially for singing songs and operas by Richard Strauss, which fit her sweet and silvery voice like couture gowns. She appeared more than 400 times at the Vienna State Opera and was a favorite at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1950s and '60s. |
|
A Bald Mezzo And Three Shades Of Violin: Classical Favorites From 2012 From the versatility of the violin to the virtuosity of a mysterious opera composer, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic set of the year's best classical recordings. |
|
A Choral Christmas With Stile Antico Hear the acclaimed British choral group in concert at the acoustically rich St. Paul's Church in Cambridge, Mass. The program features Christmas music from 16th century England composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, as well as an encore from the finest composer of the Spanish Renaissance. |
|
Calculated Instability: The Pioneering Sonatas Of C.P.E. Bach The quirky musical habits of J.S. Bach's most impressive son would later become standard practice for composers of the next generation. British pianist Danny Driver uncovers the impetuous mood swings, curious key changes and whiplash stops and starts that define Bach's leading-edge style. |
|
From Schubert To Hendrix: Guest DJ Matt Haimovitz Cellist Matt Haimovitz was raised on a strict diet of classical music. Somewhere along the way his tastes broadened considerably. Hear an eclectic mix of music — from Nina Simone to Mstislav Rostropovich — as the adventurous cellist spins his favorites in the studio. |
|
Belcea Quartet Plays Beethoven At Carnegie Hall The acclaimed London ensemble has been immersing itself in Beethoven lately, playing all 16 of his string quartets. In this concert at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, the group presents a pair of Beethoven's grand and enigmatic final quartets - works from the summit of a musical mountain. |
|
Elliott Carter, Giant Of American Music, Dies At 103  The composer, who was born in 1908 and won two Pulitzer Prizes for music that could be challenging and adventurously modern, died in New York. |
|
Pianist Gabriela Montero's Election Improv The outspoken pianist is a fearless improviser with a passion for politics. At a concert at Northwestern University, hear her make up a tune on the spot, contrasting the two major presidential candidates in a freewheeling, thoroughly American musical debate. |
|
Requiem For Sandy: What Music Gets You Through?  In the midst of crisis, music can sometimes mitigate the pain and loss. From powerful pop songs and intimate string quartets to soaring symphonies or singer-songwriters, tell us what you're listening to in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (and the stress of the election). |
|
Symphonic Superstorms: A Puzzler Over centuries of nasty weather, composers have whipped up some impressive orchestral storms of their own. Put on your musical meteorologist cap to identify the symphonic tempests and their authors in this interactive puzzler, which shows low-pressure cells in the concert hall and the opera house. |
|
Over the centuries, the durable music of J.S. Bach has withstood almost every type of makeover — sounding unscathed on anything from a banjo to a Japanese shamisen. Violinist Gidon Kremer's new album features fresh arrangements of the master's music and new works by 11 contemporary composers. |
|
The Politicians In Opera Puzzler As election season sprints to the finish, take a detour to identify some operatic officeholders in an interactive political puzzler. Can you tell an emperor from a senator, a president from a king? Click, listen and test your knowledge of singing politicians. |
