{"id":30646,"date":"2016-12-17T18:44:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T23:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30646"},"modified":"2016-12-17T18:44:40","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T23:44:40","slug":"classical-music-and-the-personal-need-for-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30646","title":{"rendered":"Classical Music and the Personal Need for Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday afternoon I listened to the Philadelphia Orchestra on Temple University’s WRTI<\/a>. (They have a repeater here in York, and overnight it’s a jazz radio station instead of classical.) I sat in my living room, my Christmas tree plugged in, a cup of tea in hand, and listened to a number of Tchaikovsky pieces, concluding with a rousing performance of the “1812 Overture.”<\/p>\n

No cannons.<\/p>\n

The thought struck me after the stirring conclusion to the hour of Tchaikovsky. When did I become this person? When did I become the person who would listen to classical music on the radio… and make a point<\/i> of listening to classical music on the radio.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I had to ponder this.<\/p>\n

And I came to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

It’s WITF<\/a>‘s fault.<\/p>\n

WITF is the public radio station in Harrisburg. In the summer, they stopped broadcasting A Prairie Home Companion<\/i>. They are, largely, an all-news station. There are some exceptions — Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me<\/i> and the excretable Ask Me Another<\/i> — but largely, it’s all news, all the time. If it’s not an NPR news program, then it’s a BBC news program. (And they don’t even broadcast an NPR news program I really like, On Point with Tom Ashbrook<\/i>. I used to listen to that in the evenings after work.)<\/p>\n

My point here is, WITF is bereft of culture. Are there music programs? No. No Thistle & Shamrock<\/i>. No Prairie Home Companion<\/i>. No Mountain Stage<\/i>. No Jazz at Lincoln Center<\/i>. No opera. It’s all talking heads.<\/p>\n

And I don’t like it. At all. I need more than talking heads. I need culture<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I’m not getting my Prairie Home Companion<\/i> fix on the radio, so I have to listen to the Philadelphia Orchestra on another NPR station. I do listen to Chris Thile’s Prairie Home Companion<\/i> thanks to the miracle of the Internet and streaming audio, but it’s not the same.<\/p>\n

As for the “1812 Overture,” my favorite version is the one by conductor Igor Buketoff and the New Philharmonia Orchestra. He added a choir to Tchaikovsky’s piece, turning the overture into a haunting choral piece and the climax into a powerful performance of “God Save the Tsar.” It’s incredibly effective, and this is the version I have on CD.<\/p>\n