Thursday Morning Classics with David Paul

J.S. Bach - Suite/Overture No. 1 in C Major BWV No.1066 - John Eliot Gardiner directs the English Baroque Soloists

Benjamin Britten - Courtly Dances from Gloriana performed by Julian Bream, guitar, and the Julian Bream Consort (Note: Bream drew and arranged these dances were drawn from Britten's opera Gloriana, written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The style is meant to evoke music from the time of Queen Elizabeth I.)

Hugo Alfven - Midsummer Vigil Op. 19 (Swedish Rhapsody No.1) - The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Neeme Jarvi - Another toe-tapping selection to liven up a gray, foggy morning.

Claude Debussy - First Arabesque, arranged and performed by Yolanda Kondonassis, harp

Ralph Vaughn Williams - In the Fen Country; A Symphonic Impression, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Bryden Thomson (Note: Vaughn Williams was a great collector of British folk songs and would frequently set out on the footpaths of English, going from village to village gathering tunes - sometimes in the company of his good friend Gustav Holst. This piece was composed after just such a tune-gathering expedition to East Anglia.)

Claude Debussy - Nocturnes for Orchestra - Nuages, Fetes, Sirenes - performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Women of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, all directed by Esa-Pekka Salonen. (Note: Another composer of lush, impressionistic music, though Debussy himself detested the term "impressionism" when it was applied to his music.)

Franz Schmidt - Intermezzo from the opera Notre Dame. Herbert von Karajan directs the Berlin Philharmonic. (We exit in a big way - a short but stirring intermezzo by a composer who wrote in the emotional, monumental style of Bruckner, who was one of his instructors. He also played cello in the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra under Gustav Mahler.)