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1. I’ve
been enjoying casual classical listening on
WFCR FM in Amherst MA --- FM in my workshop,
HD Radio HD2 at home. Only recently did I
realize they are completely different. The
FM (and HD1) have a mix of classical music,
news, talk radio, jazz etc. HD2 is 100% classical.
It has Peter Van De
Graaff as a genial host, seemingly 24 hours
a day, who provides background commentary
on the pieces played. It turns out the program
has nothing to do with WFCR. It is produced
at WFMT Chicago as the Beethoven Satellite
Network and sold to stations around the country.
It has 1 hour segments. Programming is varied
and often by thematic groups. (It never identifies
itself as BSN).
All the time I am hearing
pieces I have never heard before, which is
certainly not the case with WCRB FM. The sound
is compressed (dynamically) . I don’t
know if it is done at the source or at WFCR.
I tuned in one day and heard some interesting
music obviously from 78s. It turned out to
be 4 Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin
conducted by Hermann Abendroth from the Concertgebouw
live in 1941, from Radio Nederland.
The playlists are at
www.nepm.org/programs/beethoven-satellite-network-overnight-classical-music#stream/0
Between almost every
outro and intro there are clicks. This says
that it is the product of an editing suite
and not live. One evening I was listening
to some music of Sousa and suddenly the music
started rapidly repeating, maybe 100 times
in 30 secs. Then the sound muted for a minute,
and then the music resumed. Peter acted as
if nothing had happened.
Occasionally the sound
mutes for a few seconds for no apparent reason.
His pronunciation seems
impeccable, sometimes giving the native language
pronunciation, then the Anglicized version.
He pronounced Glazunov’s Raymonda Ballet
as “Rye-munda” with the “u”
as in “put”. I can’t confirm
this.
email me here
Webmaster's
note: Just for fun reference, there are quite
a number of lovely Art Nouveau fonts in the
Arnold Bocklin family style, as shown here:
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